(j4- 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

# # 

1559^ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. f 

f 





\^r. J{c'-r/^?^. 



THE LIFE 



OF 



GEORGE HERBERT 



.^:^ 



1^ 



GEOKGE L. DUYOKI-E'CK, 



SECOND EDITION. 



NEW YORK: 

CKenetal 33votestant Hpfscojpal Suntiarj Sdjool saition, 
aiitj €:|)uvri) aSook Society, 

762 BROADWAY. 

1859. 




?R 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, 

By the General Peotestant Episcopal Sunday School Union, 
AND Church Kook Society, 

In the Clerk's Office of the Distr3''t Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of New Yorlc . 



"William Denyse, Pudney & Eussell, 

btereotyper and electeotyper, printers, 

188 William Street, N. Y. 79 John-st., N. Y. 



PUBLISHED 



BY THE 



SUNDAY SCHOOL CHILDEEJST 



ST. THOMAS' CHUECH, 



EW YOEK, 



TO 

THE VEEY EEVEEEND 

RICHARD CHENEYIX TRENCH, D.D. 

DEAN" OF WESTMINSTER, 

LIKE GEOEGE HEEBEET A PEIEST AND POET 

OF 

"OUE MOTHEE, THE OHITEOH OF ENGLAND," 

THIS LITTLE VOLUME 

IS EESPECTFIJLLY AND AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED. 



PREFACE. 

It has been the endeavor in the following pages to pre- 
sent the beautiful career of ' ' holy Mr. Herbert, ' ' with a 
Bimplicity of style and fulness of detail which should in 
some degree meet the requirements both of youthful and 
mature readers. 

The Life by Izaak Walton has furnished our chief 
authority. We have frequently quoted the words of this 
admirable -writer, not only as better than any which we 
could ourselves offer, but from a desire to introduce a 
class of readers — many of whom, it is reasonable to sup- 
pose, -will, in the following pages, make their first 
acquaintance with old English literature — to one of the 
purest and most delightful authors of our language. 

Much information of an interesting and important 
character, respecting Mr. Herbert's ancestors and imme- 
diate family connections, has been derived from other 
sources. Foremost amongst these ranks the picturesque 
Autobiography of his eldest brother, Lord Herbert of 



VIU PREFACE. 

Cherbury. We are indebted for valuable details respect- 
ing the career of Nicholas Ferrar to the Life by Peckard, 
reprinted in "Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography, and 
for information respecting Mr. Herbert's other friends to 
the notes in Prebendary Zouch's edition of Walton's 
Lives. We have also to record our obligations to the 
Lives of Sacred Poets, by the Rev. Robert Aris Willmott, 
to Sir Egerton Brydges' " Restituta," and the contempo- 
rary pages of "Notes and Queries." ,^ 
Ne-w York, April 26, 1858. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

FAGB 

The Herbert family— Sir Eichard of Colebrook — The capture of 
Harlech Castle — A true knight — The seven brothers and their 
mother— Sir Kichard Herbert the suppressor of thieves, out- 
laws, and rebels— Edward Herbert— His capture of an outlaw 
— Black-Hall— Sir Eichard Herbert, justice of the peace, and 
Magdalen his wife— The parents of George Herbert 13 



CHAPTER II. 

Montgomery Castle, its history— George Herbert's birth — His 
brothers, Edward, Eichard, "William, Charles, Henry, and 
Thomas— His sisters, Elizabeth, Margaret, and Frances 21 



CHAPTER III. 

The mother of George Herbert— Her mother, Margaret Newport 
— Death of George Herbert's father — His early education — 
Westminster School— His master's anticipations— Cambridge — 
His first poem — Mrs. Herbert's intimacy with Dr, Donne— The 
Autumnal Beauty — History of their friendship — Mrs. Herbert's 
residence at Oxford— Donne's lines to Edward Herbert— Mrs. 
Herbert's care of her children 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

PAOB 

Mrs. Herbert's marriage to Sir John Danvers— George Herbert 
at Cambridge— Made a Fellow of Trinity College— His deport- 
ment — Prevalent love of dress — Herbert's desire for books — 
State of his health— His brother Henry and sick sister— Distri- 
bution of his father's estate— His income— Sir John Danvers' 
liberality — " Favors come on horseback" 44 

CHAPTER V. 
Mr. Herbert Orator of the University — His letter to King James 
— The Basilicon Doron — Andrew Melvin — Lord Bacon and 
Bishop Andrews— Herbert's Greek letter— Herbert's courtier 
tastes and hopes — His sinecure — Mrs. Herbert's views — Disap- 
pointment—Social position of the clergy— Herbert's views on 
the subject 55 

CHAPTER VI. 
Mr. Herbert ordained Deacon— Prebendary of Leighton— Ees- 
toration of the parish church — His mother's objections — The 
Earl of Pembroke— " Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother" — 
Death of Mrs. Herbert— Dr. Donne's funeral sermon— Mr. 
Herbert's verses to his mother's memory — Dr. Donne's rings — 
" The anchor and Christ" 70 

CHAPTER VII. 

Mr. Herbert's illness— Visits to Woodford and Dauntsey— Epi- 
taph on Lord Danvers— His poem, " Affliction"— Jane Dan- 
vers changes her name into Herbert— Walton's account of their 
married life— Bishop Sanderson 89 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Bemerton— King Charles' admiration of Herbert— " Spiritual 
conflicts" — Bishop Laud— Mr. Herbert's induction—" Tolling 
the bell"— A retrospect— The " minister's wife"— Comfortable 
speech to an old woman— The parish church and parsonage 
repaired— The first sermon 9T 



CONTEXTS. XI 

CHAPTER IX. 

in 1839— Wilton H 
Temple" — A peep tlirougli a window. 



PAOB 

A Sunday at Bemerton in 1839 — "Wilton Hall— The new Herbert 



CHAPTER X. 

Mr. Herbert's companions at Cambridge—" The Pearl''— Daily 
prayers at Bemerton— " Mr. Herbert's Saint's bell"— Church 
music — "Wayside teachings — Catechising — The "poor man 
with a poorer horse" — "Music at midnight" — Mr. Herbert's 
reverence and love for the Bible 116 



CHAPTER XI. 

The country parson — "Shavings of gold"— The parson's apparel 
and housekeeping — " The walls not idle"— The parson's Sun- 
day work— "Wasting of disease 127 



CHAPTER XII. 

Mr. Nicholas Ferrar — The Virginia Company— Little Gidden — 
Devotional exercises— The tablet—" Abused as Papists and as 
Puritans" — John Valdesso — Mr. Ferrar's prayer — Mr. Dun- 
con's visit—" What prayers ?"— Manuscript of the Temple 136 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Mr. Woodnot — The past and the future — Mr, Herbert's last Sun- 
day — "Church music'* — Good works — The death-bed— Mr. 
Herbert's burial — Mrs. Herbert's widowhood — Loss of Mr. 
Herbert's manuscripts 149 



CHAPITER XIV. 

Cornaro on Temperance — Proverbs — Walton's description of The 
Temple— Character of the work—" The Church Porch" — " The 
Altar"—" Sin"—" Virtue"—" The British Church"—" Peace". 159 



Xll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XV. 

PAGB 

License for the publication of The Temple— Eeligion and Ameri- 
ca — The Virginia and New England emigrations— Mr. Ferrar's 
Introduction to The Temple -Popularity of the work— The 
Synagogue— Christopher Harvey— "Walton's lines—" The Book 
of Common Prayer"— Herbert's Proverbs 171 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Izaak Walton— Lives of Donne and "Walton— The Complete 
Angler— Allusions to Mr. Herbert— Lives of Hooker and Her- 
bert—Prefaces to his Life of Herbert— Woodford's lines on 
Herbert and Donne— Cotton's tribute to Herbert— Duport's 
Latin lines— Life of Sanderson— Wordsworth's sonnet— Wal- 
ton's death— Crashaw's poem on The Temple— Warton and 
Pope — Campbell, Coleridge, and Mrs. Browning— Portrait— 
Norris of Bemerton and Archdeacon Coxe— Conclusion 179 



THE LIFE OP 

GEORGE HERBERT. 

CHAPTEE I. 

THE HEEBEET FAMILY — SIR EICHAED OF COLEBEOOK — THE 

CAPTUEE OF HAELECH CASTLE A TEUE KNIGHT THE 

SEVEN BEOTHEES AND. THEIE MOTHEE — SIR EICHAED 
HEEBEET THE SUPPRESSOR OF THIEVES, OUTLAWS, 

AND EEBELS EDWAED HERBERT HIS CAPTURE OF AN 

OUTLAW BLACK-HALL SIR EICHAED HEEBEET, JUS- 
TICE OF THE PEACE, AND MAGDALEN HIS WIFE THE 

PAEENTS OF GEOEGE HEEBEET. 

GEOEGE HEEBEET, whose works and 
memory form one of the best posses- 
sions of our Church, was a member of a 
family which had held a high rank and 
eminent position for many generations in the 
history of their native England. 

The first of his ancestors of whom we have 



14 SIEGE OF IIARLECII CASTLE. 

an account was his grandfather's grand- 
father, Sir Eichard Herbert, of Colebrook. 
He was a very brave man in battle, the 
chief employment of those days. It is said 
of Sir Kichard that he " twice passed through 
a great army of northern men alone, with his 
pole or battle-axe in his hand, and returned 
without any mortal hurt." 

We have another story which illustrates 
the good knight's honorable regard for his 
promise. He was employed by King Ed- 
ward the Fourth to besiege Harlech Castle, 
in Merionethshire, in "Wales. The castle was 
held by a brave captain who had served for 
many years in France. It was his boast that 
he " had kept a castle in France so long that 
he made the old women in Wales talk of 
him, and that he would keep the castle so 
long that he would make the old w^omen in 
France talk of him." He made good his 
word by an obstinate defence. The position 
of the castle was so strong as to render it 



siE kichard's wokd. 15 

almost impossible to overcome its imnates, 
except by starvation. To induce a sm-render 
Sir Richard promised to urge King Edward 
the Fom'th to spare the captain's life, which 
had been forfeited by his rebellion. The 
knight soon after brought his prisoner before 
the king and represented the circumstances 
of the surrender. The king replied that he 
had given no authority to his officer to hold 
out any hopes of mercy, and that the latter 
having nsed his best exertions to save his 
foeman's life, had satisfied his pledged word. 
But Sir Eichard would not be tempted from 
his obligation. " Grant me, I pray," he en- 
treated his sovereign, " one of two things. 
Either place this brave man back in his 
castle and send some one else to subdue him, 
or else take my life in place of his whom I 
have promised to do my utmost to have 
spared." The king was so impressed by this 
honorable devotion that he granted the pris- 
oner's life. 



16 THE SEVEN BKOTHEES. 

There is another example of Sir Kichard's 
love of mercy. He had, with his brother, 
the Earl of Pembroke, captured, in the island 
of Anglesea, seven brothers, who had, in 
the simple but expressive words of the nar- 
rative, " done many mischiefs and murders." 
The Earl "thinking it fit to root out so 
wicked a progeny," ordered them all to be 
hanged. Their mother came to the captors 
and begged that two, or at least one, of her 
offspring might be spared to her, urging that 
the execution of the others would be a suf- 
ficient atonement to justice. Sir Richard 
seconded the mother's petition ; but the Earl 
decided that all having been equally guilty, 
all should suffer the same penalty. His 
sentence, that they should all be executed 
together, so enraged their mother with grief 
that she knelt down and cursed the judge, 
praying that he might suffer defeat or mishap 
in the next battle in which he should be en- 
gaged. This incident was soon afterwards 



RICHARD HERBERT. 17 

followed by the encouiiter at Edgecofce, in 
wliicli both brothers were taken prisoners. 
Sir Richard, still magnanimous, entreated 
his captors to sj^are, not his own life, but his 
brother's. Both w^ere afterward set at liberty. 

The good knight's son, also named Richard, 
was steward, in the reign of King Henry the 
Eighth, of the lordshij)s and marches of 
]^orth AVales, East "Wales, and Cardiganshire, 
a large and important district, throughout 
which he exercised sovereign power over the 
lives of offenders. It is recorded to his credit 
that though " a great suppressor of rebels, 
thieves, and outlaws, he was just and con- 
scionable." He might have amassed great 
wealth by an unjust exercise of the powers 
of his office, but he wisely preferred to be- 
queath to his descendants the better heritage 
of a good name. 

His son Edward, the grandfather of George 
Herbert, after running a successful career as 
a soldier, acquiring wealth as well as honor, 
2^ 



18 

settled down in the family castle of Mont- 
gomery, in Wales. He was justice of the 
peace, and a great terror to the outlaws and 
thieves who infested the mountainous coun- 
try in which he lived, frequently attacking 
and capturing them in their strongholds. 
The desperate nature of these miscreants 
may be inferred from an anecdote which we 
will give in the words of Edward Herbert's 
grandson, Lord Herbert of Cherbury : 

" Some outlaw^s being lodged in an ale- 
house upon the hills of Llandinam, my grand- 
father and a few servants coming to appre- 
hend them, the principal outlaw shot an 
arrow against my grandfather, which stuck 
in the pommel of his saddle, whereupon my 
grandfather coming up to him with his sword 
in his hand, and taking him prisoner, he 
showed him the said arrow, bidding him look 
what he had done, whereof the outlaw was 
no further sensible than to say he was sorry 
that he left his better bow at home, which 



BLACK-IIALL CHEEE. 19 

he conceived would have carried his shot to 
his body ; but the outlaw, being brought to 
justice, suffered for it." 

The judge took great delight in the exer- 
cise of the virtue of hospitality, "having a 
very long table twice covered every meal 
with the best meats that could be gotten, and 
a very great family." His good cheer was 
so celebrated, that it was a favorite saying in 
the country around, wdien a fowl rose : " Fly 
where thou w^ilt, thou wilt light at Black- 
hall !" — Black-hall being the name of a resi- 
dence, described as a " low building, but of 
great capacity," erected during the latter 
part of his life. 

In the next generation we again meet the 
familiar family name of Richard in the per- 
son of the father of George Herbert. This 
gentleman v/as also a justice of the peace, and 
so resolute in the discharge of his duties that 
he was once severely wounded in an attempt 
to secure an offender who had defied the 



20 MAQDAI^EN HERBERT. 

ordinary process of law. He married Mag- 
dalen, daughter of Sir Ricliard and Margaret 
!N^ewport, a lady also descended from an 
ancient family, and, as we shall see, well 
qualified to adorn the honorable position in 
which she was placed. 



CHAPTEK n. 

MOXTGOMERY CASTLE, ITS IIISTOEY GEOEGE HERBEET'S 

BIETH — HIS BE0THEE3, EDWAED, EICHAED, WILLIAM, 
CHAELES, HEXET, AXD THOMAS HIS SISTEES, ELIZA- 
BETH, MAEGAEET, AXD FEAXCES. 

THE Herbert family had for many genera- 
tions inhabited the castle of Montgom- 
ery, a noted stronghold, which was, even in 
their time, invested with the interest of an- 
tiquity. The oldest portion was erected by 
Baldwin, a companion of William the Con- 
queror. It was afterwards in the j^ossession 
of Koger de Montgomery, Earl of Shrews- 
bury, by whom it was greatly enlarged and 
strengthened. As it was on the border be- 
tween England and Wales, it was a strong- 
hold of great imj)ortance, especially during 
the contests between the British and the Sax- 



22 MOKTGOMEKY CASTLE. 

ons. During the middle portion of the four- 
teenth century it became the property of the 
House of York, and subsequently, through 
that royal line, of the Crown, by whom it was 
granted, in the following century, to the Her- 
bert family. At the outset of the civil war 
which raged for many years of the seven- 
teenth century, it w^as garrisoned by the 
King's party, but soon sun-endered to the 
Parliamentary forces, by whose order it was 
demolished. The picturesque remains of its 
round keep and outer walls still interest the 
traveller. 

George Heebert was born in the old castle 
whose varied fortunes we have just traced, 
on the third of April, 1593. He was prob- 
ably named after an uncle George, of 'New 
College, Oxford, who, as Lord Herbert of 
Cherbury informs us, " was very learned, of 
a pious life, and died in a middle age of a 
dropsy." He was the fifth son of a family 
to which others were afterwards added, so 



EDWARD UERBEKT. • 23 

that his mother, to quote her fiivorite enu- 
meration of her oiFsj^ring, finally jDossessed 
"Job's number and Job's distribution" — 
seven sons and three daughters. They all 
grew up, under her religious care, to occuj^y 
stations of honor and usefulness. Edward, 
the eldest, early attached himself to the 
Court. He passed many years in foreign 
travel, and was for a long period the Am- 
bassador of his country in France, where he 
made himself obnoxious to the party in 
povrer by his sympathy with the persecuted 
Protestants of that country. On his return 
he w^as made Baron of Cherbury, in Shrop- 
shire, by King James. He was the author of 
a book in the Latin language, on the Chris- 
tian Religion, in which he compares the doc- 
trines and duties of our blessed Faith with 
those of the idolatrous systems of antiquity. 
He also wrote a History of the Reign of King 
Henry the Eighth, and his Autobiograj^hy — 
an extremely candid and interesting record of 



24 AUTOBIOGEAPHY AND POEMS. 

the varied incidents of his life. It was writ- 
ten after he had passed his sixtieth year. He 
died in 1648. His Autobiography, to which 
we have been indebted for the facts narrated 
in our first chapter, remained in manuscript 
until 1YG4, when it was printed, with a preface, 
by Horace "Walpole, at his private press at 
Strawbeny Hill. It was reprinted by Dods- 
ley in 1Y70, and a third edition, edited by 
Sir "Walter Scott, has since been published. 

A volume of his poems appeared in 1665, 
after his death, with the title, " Occasional 
Yerses of Edward Lord Herbert, Baron of 
Cherbury and Castle Island, deceased in Au- 
gust, 1618." "We extract the best of the few 
specimens given of the collection in Sir Eger- 
ton Brydges' Ttestituta."^^' 

TO TUB C. OF D.f 

Since in your face, as in a beauteous sphere, 
Delight and state so sweetly mix' d appear, 
That love's not light, nor gravity severe, 

« Vol. II., p. 426. t Probably the Countess^of Dorset. 



EICHAED IIEKBERT. 26 

All your attractive graces seem to draw, 

A modest vigor keepeth so in aw, 

That in their turns each of them gives the law. 

Therefore, though chaste and vertuous desire 
Through that your native mildness may aspire 
TJntill a just regard it doth acquire ; 

Yet if love, thence, a forward hope project, 
You can, by virtue of a sweet neglect. 
Convert it straight to reverend respect. 

Thus, as in your rare temper we may find 

An excellence so perfect in each kind, 

That a fair body hath a fairer mind ; 
So all the beams you diversly do dart. 
As well on th' understanding as the heart, 
Of love and honour equal cause impart. 

The brothers next in age, Eichard and "Wil- 
liam, after receiving a liberal education, be- 
came soldiers. Eichard engaged in the serv- 
ice of the United Provinces of Holland, and 
died while em23lojed in the struggle for re- 
ligious and civil liberty, which afterwards re- 
sulted in the emancipation of tliat country 
from the superstition and tyranny of Spain. 
His body, when carried to the grave at Ber- 
gen-op-Zoom, bore, it is said, the scars of four- 
3 



26 WILLIAM AND CHARLES HEEBEET. 

and-twentj wounds. "William, like his broth- 
ers, maintained the warlike character of his 
house. He commenced service in Denmark, 
'' where, fighting a single combat, and having 
his sword broken, he not only defended him- 
self with that piece w^hich remained, but, clos- 
ing with his adversary, threw him down and 
so held him, until company came in." He 
next went to the Netherlands, where his ca- 
reer soon after closed. 

Charles, the fourth brother, became a Fel- 
low of JSTew College, Oxford. A Fellow is 
one of a limited number of persons educated 
at an English college, who receive, as a re- 
ward for their application to study, and as an 
incentive to continue in the same useful pur- 
suit, the free occupancy of apartments and 
a regular support from the institutions in 
which they have distinguished themselves. 
He did not long enjoy his honors and advan- 
tages, dying, at an early age, at Ms college, 
after having given bright promise of future 



A SEA-FIGHT. 2Y 

usefulness. George, the fifth son, will form 
the subject of our biography. 

Hemy, the sixth son, became Gentleman of 
the King's Privy Chamber, and Master of the 
Revels, or director of the amusements of the 
Court of King James, an office which he re- 
tained for fifty years. He married a wealthy 
lady and amassed a large estate. 

The seventh and youngest son, Thomas, 
was born a few wrecks after his father's death. 
He was page to Sir Edward Cecil, com- 
mander of the English forces in the German 
wars, and displayed great daring at the siege 
of Juliers, in the year 1610. On his return 
he was naturally attracted to the ocean as a 
field of adventure, and sailed for the East 
Indies under the command of Captain Joseph. 
On the voyage the captain, falling in with 
and engaging " a great Spanish shi})," was 
killed in the encounter. This misfortune 
naturally disheartened his men, but, on being 
rallied by Thomas Herbert, they renewed 



28 THE ALGEKINES. 

the fight with such energy and success, as to 
run aground and completely riddle their op- 
ponent. He remained a year in the Indies 
and then returned with the fleet to England. 
He next engaged under Sir Eobert Mansell, 
in the fleet sent by King James against the 
Algerines. These piratical inhabitants of the 
south-western shores of the Mediterranean 
were then the terror of Euro^^e, on account 
of their relentless attacks upon the shipping 
and coasts of that sea, and their practice of 
consigning all captives who were unable to 
pay a costly ransom, to a hopeless and cruel 
bondage. 

Thomas Herbert, in the hearty words of 
Izaak Walton, " did show a fortunate and 
true English valor" in the punishment of 
these miscreants. The fleet being, on one oc- 
casion, in great want of money and provis- 
ions, the ships separated in the hope that 
they might thus fall in with and capture one 
or more of the enemy's vessels, and thus ex- 



A SHIPWEECK. 29 

peditiouslj provide for the necessities of the 
whole. Thomas Herbert had the good for- 
tune to realize these exj)ectations by secur- 
ing a prize which yielded supplies to the 
value of eighteen hundred pounds. 

His last recorded exj)loit displays the kind- 
ness which is the almost constant accom- 
paniment of true bravery. While conduct- 
ing Count Mansfelt to Holland, the vessel in 
which they were embarked ran aground. It 
was not far from the shore. The Count with 
his train were placed in the long boat, Her- 
bert refusing to accompany them, that he 
might remain to assist the master in his 
efforts to save the vessel. He was the last, 
with the exception of the captain, after the 
hopelessness of these exertions became ap- 
parent, to abandon the wreck. It must have 
been a dangerous service, as the captain, re- 
fusing to leave, was lost with the ship. 

The eldest daughter, Elizabeth, seems to 
have shared the feeble constitution of her 
3* 



30 

brother George. "The latter end of her 
time," says Lord Herbert, "was the most 
sickly and miserable that hath been known 
in onr times. For the space of about four- 
teen years she languished and pined away to 
skin and bones." She married "Sir Henry 
Jones, of Albemarles." Margaret, the next 
daughter, became the wife of a Welsh neigh- 
bor, John Yaughan, of Llwydiart. Frances, 
the youngest, married Sir John Brown, 
" Knight in Lincolnshire." These ladies all 
became exem^^lary matrons. 



CHAPTEE in. 

THE MOTHER OF GEORGE HERBERT — HER MOTHER, MAR- 
GARET NEWPORT DEATH OF GEORGE HERBERT'8 FA- 
THER HIS EARLY EDrCATIOX— WESTMINSTER SCHOOL 

HIS master's ANTICIPATIONS CAMBRIDGE —HIS FIRST 

POEM — MRS. Herbert's intimacy with dr. donne — 

THE AUTUMNAL BEAUTY HISTORY OF THEIR FRIEND- 
SHIP — MRS. Herbert's residence at oxford — donne's 

LINES TO EDWARD HERBERT MRS. HERBERT'S CARE OF 

HER CHILDREN. 

THE mother of the large and gifted 
family, whose varied and eventful for- 
tunes we have briefly sketched, was one well 
fitted to bear the important duties of her 
position. She had herself enjoyed the ad- 
vantages of careful maternal training, her 
mother, Lady Margaret IS^ewport, who be- 
came a widow at an early age, devoting her 
entire attention to the care of her family and 



32 MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 

to works of piety and benevolence. We read 
of her as ^' most assiduous and devout in her 
daily, both private and public, prayers," and 
that, in addition to a bountiful hospitality, 
^' she used ever after dinner to distribute 
with her own hands to the poor, wlio re- 
sorted to her in great numbers, alms in 
money, to every one of them more or less, as 
she thought they needed it." 

Mrs. Herbert, under somewhat similar cir- 
cumstances, exhibited kindred maternal vir- 
tues. She furnishes one of the many ex- 
amples among the mothers of great men, of 
the possession of the eminent virtues and 
talents which have won the admiration and 
affection of the world. Fortunately for our 
readers, she will often appear in these pages. 

"We now return to George Herbert. At 
the early age of four years he had the mis- 
fortune to lose his father, who had for some 
time suffered from a lingering, wasting dis- 
ease. George received, under the super- 



WESTMINSTER SCHOOL. 33 

vision of his mother, the rudiments of 
education from a tutor who resided in the 
family. When he was twelve years old he 
entered Westminster School, a celebrated 
institution of learning connected with the 
world-renowned Abbey. 

By the kind influence of Dr. ISTeale, Dean 
of Westminster, he was especially com-' 
mended to the care of the head master, Mr. 
Ireland. He soon gained the respect and 
affection of this gentleman, and of the other 
teachers, as well as of his fellow-scholars, by 
his gentle and winning manners. He already 
began to do good in the world by helping 
others, and by the quiet influence of a good 
example. By applying himself earnestly to 
his studies his duty became his pleasure, and, 
strange as it may appear to lazy schoolboys, 
he learned to love Latin and Greek. At the 
age of fifteen he was elected, on account of 
his good scholarship, a student of Tiinity 
College, Cambridge. He quitted West- 



34 CAMBRIDGE. 

minster in company with Jolm Hacket, 
afterward Bisliop of Lichfield. Mr. Ireland, 
foreseeing the future eminence from the 
present promise of his two pupils, remarked 
to them at parting, "that he expected to 
have credit from them two at the University, 
or he would never hope for it afterwards 
while he lived." 

Cambridge, like Oxford, derives its fame 
and importance almost entirely from the 
many institutions of learning gathered within 
its boundaries. The colleges stand for the 
most part side by side, facing a long and 
handsome street. Their walls do not toach, 
for each possesses grounds of beautifully ver- 
dant and closely shorn greensward, almost 
as soft to the foot as a bed of moss. Back 
of these flows the Cam, a placid stream of 
only a few yards in width. It is spanned by 
several fine bridges w^hich afford ready 
access to beautiful lawns and gardens. As 
the entire space is devoted to pleasure 



COLLEGE LAWNS. 35 

grounds, an uninterrupted view is afforded 
of tlie colleges, with their noble towers and 
pinnacles, the high-ridged roofs of their 
chapels and halls, the ivy-clad walls of their 
quadrangles (the large court around which 
rise the buildings for the residence and in^ 
struction of the students), and beautifully 
carved portals whose thresholds were even 
then worn by the footsteps of successive 
generations. The only interruption to the 
free range of the spectator's glance is an en- 
hancement rather than a diminution of his 
pleasure. Trees of noble growth are scat- 
tered over the grounds or border stately 
avenues. "We may wander in comfort at hot 
noontide beneath their shelter, or admire the 
effect of the long shadows over lawn and 
gable at eventide. 

Most of these charms were present to the 
eye of the scholar of Herbert's day, as to 
the generation which happily still peoples 
these retreats. His was not a mind to neg- 



36 A NEW year's gift. 

lect siicli advantages. The scenes of his 
childhood had trained his taste for the bean 
ties of art and natnre, and his Maker had 
endowed him with the happy faculty by 
which his mental enjoyments could be im- 
parted to others. 

The first of his poems of which we find an 
account in his biographer Walton, was ad- 
dressed to his mother on the first E'ew Year's 
day after his establishment at Cambridge. 
In the letter accompanying these verses, 
after lamenting that the writers of his day 
devoted their time and talents to trivial and 
often wicked themes, he says, " For my own 
part, my meaning (dear mother) is, in these 
sonnets, to declare my resolution to be, that 
my poor abilities in poetry shall be all and 
ever consecrated to God's glory." 

We extract " these sonnets" for their own 
merits, in addition to the interest con- 
nected with them as the first recorded pro- 
duction of their author. The true " ancient 



SONNETS. 37 

heat" of poetry as well as devotion glows 
in them. 

My God where is that ancient heat towards thee 
Wherewith whole shoals of martyi-s once did hum, 

Besides their other flames ? Doth poetry- 
Wear Venus' livery ? only serve her turn ? 

Why are not sonnets made of thee ? and lays 
Upon thine altar burnt ? Cannot thy love 

Heighten a spirit to sound out thy praise 
As well as any she ? Cannot thy dove 

Outstrip their Cupid easily in flight ? 

Or, since thy ways are deep, and still the same, 
Will not a verse run smooth that hears thy name ? 

Why doth that fire, which by thy power and might 
Each breast does feel, no braver fewel choose » 

Than that, which one day worms may chance refuse. 

Sure, Lord, there is enough in thee to dry 

Oceans of ink ; for, as the deluge did 
Cover the earth, so doth thy Majesty : 

Each cloud distils thy praise, and doth forbid 
Poets to turn it to another use. 

Roses and lilies speak thee ; and to make 
A pair of cheeks of them is thy abuse. 

Why should I women's eyes for crystal take ? 
Such poor invention burns in their low mind 

Whose fire is wild and doth not upward go 

To praise, and on thee, Lord, some ink bestow. 
Open the bones, and you shall nothing find 

In the best face but filth ; when, Lord, in thee 

The beauty lies in the discovery. 

4 



38 THE AUTUMNAL BEAUTY. 

The mother could not fail to appreciate 
and encourage the exertions of her son. Her 
brilliant natural acquirements had been cul- 
tivated by intercourse with some of the most 
gifted men of the age. She was an intimate 
friend of Dr. John Donne, afterwards Dean 
or chief pastor of St. Paul's Cathedral in 
London, one of the most esteemed poets of 
his day, and a learned and eloquent divine. 
The verses addressed to her by Donne show 
his high estimate of her mental qualifications. 
Avoiding the low flattery by which a com- 
mon mind would perhaps have striven to 
make the object of his praises forgetful of 
the advances of age, he styles her, with sim- 
plicity and sincerity, The Autumnal Beauty. 
A few of his best turned lines and compli- 
ments may be given : 

No Spring, nor Summer's beauty hath such grace, 
As I have seen in one autumnal face. 

«- c- 5;;5 c- » 

Were her first year? the golden age ? that's true ; 
But now she's gold oft tried, and ever new. 



MRS. HEEBEKT AT OXFORD, 39 

That was her torrid and inflaming time ; 

This is her habitable tropic clime. 

Fair eyes, who asks more heat than comes from hence, 

He in a fever wishes pestilence. 

a ?f w « « 

In all her words, unto all hearers fit, 
You may at revels, you at councils sit.-^ 

The circumstancea which led to this 
pleasant friendship throw so much light on 
the noble character of this Christian mother 
that it would be unpardonable to omit the 
narration. It arose during her residence in 
Oxford, to which place she had removed in 
order to superintend the training of her 
eldest son Edward, who had entered Queen's 
College in that city. She provided him with 
a well-qualified tutor and remained near, 
that the quiet influence of her presence and 
the pleasure of her society might guard and 
divert him from the temptations to which 
youth are liable. In the words of Walton, 
" She continued there with him, and still 
kept him in a moderate awe of herself, and 
<* Donne's Poems. Boston, 1855, p. 344. 



40 EDUCATION. 

SO much under her own eye, as to see and 
converse with him daily; but she managed 
this power over him without any such rigid 
sourness as might make her company a tor- 
ment to her child, but with such a sweetness 
and compliance with the recreations and 
pleasures of youth, as did incline him wil- 
lingly to spend much of his time in the com- 
pany of his dear and careful mother ; which 
was to her great content, for she would often 
say, ' That as our bodies take a nourishment 
suitable to the meat on which we feed, so our 
souls do as insensibly take in vice by the ex- 
ample or conversation with wicked com- 
pany.' And would, therefore, as often say, 
'That ignorance of vice was the best pre- 
servative of virtue ; and that the very knowl- 
edo-e of wickedness w^as as tinder to inflame 
and kindle sin, and to keep it burning.' For 
these reasons she endeared him to her own 
company, and continued with him in Oxford 
four years." 



THE FRIENDS. 41 

It was during this long residence that she 
became acquainted with Mr., afterwards Dr., 
John Donne. He had not yet entered the 
ministry. " She not only aided him by her 
counsel and sympathy, but also with her 
purse, an assistance rendered necessary by 
the frequent exhaustion of his slender means 
in the support of his wife and seven children. 
His letters as w^ell as poems bear evidence 
of his appreciation of these kindnesses, and 
his future eminence shows the aid to have 
been wisely appropriated. 

The friendship was life-long, and was ex- 
tended as warmly to her sons as to herself. 
He addresses the eldest, Edward, at the 
Siege of Juliers, at the close of a poetical 
epistle : 

As brave as true is that profession than, 
Which you do use to make ; that you know man. 
This makes it credible you've dwelt upon 
All worthy books, and now are such a one ; 
Actions are authors, and of those in you 
Your friends find every day a mart of new. 

4* 



42 SWIMMING AND OBEDIENCE. 

He was also, as we shall see, the con- 
stant friend and ardent admirer of onr 
hero. 

A curious instance of Mrs. Herbert's care 
of her children is given in her son, Lord 
Herbert of Cherbnry's Autobiography, and 
may be fitly inserted here. He is enu- 
umerating the essentials of a liberal educa- 
tion : 

" It will be fit for a gentleman also to learn 
to swim, unless he be given to cramps and 
convulsions ; howbeit I must confess in my 
own particular that I cannot swim, for as I 
was once in danger of drowning by learning 
to swim, my mother upon her blessing 
charged me never to learn swimming, tell- 
ing me further, that she had heard of more 
drowned than saved by it, which reason, 
though it did not prevail with me, yet her 
commandment did." "We may, like the son, 
be unconvinced by the " reason," but it is im- 
possible not to admire the example of obedi- 



OBEDIENCE. 43 

ence. It is a liappy illustration of the poet's 
time, 

When a parent's will 

Was sacred still, 

As a law by his children heeded. 



CHAPTER lY. 

MES. HEEBEEt's MAEEIAGE TO 8IE JOHN DANVEES — • 

GEOEGE HEEBEET AT CAMBEIDGE MADE A FELLOW OF 

TEINITY COLLEGE HIS DEPOETMENT PEEVALENT 

LOVE OF DEESS — HEEBEEt's DESIEE FOE BOOKS STATE 

OF HIS HEALTH HIS BEOTHEB HENEY AND SICK 

SISTER — DISTEIBUTION OF HIS FATHEE's ESTATE HIS 

INCOME SIE JOHN DANYEES' LIBEEALITY " FAVOES 

COME ON HOESEBACK." 

MES. HERBERT did not, as in the case 
of lier son Edward, accompany George 
to college, her recent marriage to Sir 
John Danvers — ^brother and heir to Lord 
Danvers, Earl of -I>erhy — imposing new 
duties elsewhere. It was probably also felt 
that the youth's feet were already set in the 
ways of a pleasantness to which earthly 
temptations could offer no counter attraction, 
and that he could thus be safely left in some 



ArrolNTED A MINOR FELLOW. 45 

measure to tlie guidance of his own judg- 
ment. His mother's care and influence, 
however, procured for him the protection of 
Dr. IN'evil, Dean of Canterbury and master 
of his college. He was hospitably enter- 
tained by this gentleman, and provided with 
a tutor to aid and direct his studies. 

" I need not declare," says Walton of 
George Herbert at this time, " that he was a 
strict student, because that he was so, there 
will be many testimonies in the future part 
of his life." He passed through his col- 
legiate course with honor, and in the year 
1612 received the degree of Bachelor of Arts. 
On the 3d of October, 1614, he obtained the 
appointment of Minor Fellow of his college. 

Herbert was at this time somewhat re- 
served in his deportment. He associated 
with but few persons, but these were selected 
for their sterling worth. One of his most in- 
timate friends was Mr. Mcholas Ferrar, then 
a student of Clare Hall. We shall have occa- 



46 FOPPISHNESS. 

sion to speak of him at length, at a later 
period of his career. 

"We can hardly expect to find any young 
man entirely free from the foibles of those by 
whom he is surrounded. Extravagance in 
attire is a frequent weakness with college 
students, and one from which Herbert does 
not appear to have been exempt. It was a 
prevalent folly of the age, indulged in not 
only by inexperienced youth, but by many 
of the first men of the state. " Courtiers," it 
is said, "placed fiowers behind their ears, 
and one of the most elegant noblemen of the 
age, William, Earl of Pembroke, a kinsman 
of Herbert, wore ear-rings."* The Chandos 
portrait of Shakspeare shows that he in- 
dulged in the same questionable ornament. 
It attained such a height among the unthink- 
ing youth at the universities, that a curious 
regulation was issued by the Yice-Chancellor 

« Willmott's Lives of Sacred Poets. 



MASTER OF ARTS. 47 

of Cambridge, in 1614, forbidding " strange 
pekadivelas, vast bands, huge cuffs, shoe 
roses, tufts, locks and topps of hair, unbe- 
seeming the modesty and carridge of stu- 
dents in so renowned an Universitje," under 
penalty of a fine of six shillings and eight- 
pence, with a month's imprisonment. The 
close cropped hair and " sad coloured" 
clothes of the Puritans were a natural though 
excessive protest against the prevalent ex- 
travagance. 

In March, 1615, Mr. Herbert was made a 
Major Fellow of his college. In the follow- 
ing year he received the degree of Master of 
Arts. A letter, bearing date March 18, 
1617, addressed to his/ather-in4aw, furnishes 
us with some interesting particulars relating 
to his position at the time. It opens with an 
appeal for aid in the purchase of books. 

"You know, sir," he says, " how I am now 
setting foot in divinity, to lay the platform 
of my future life, and shall I then be fain al- 



48 A PLEA FOR BOOKS. 

ways to borrow books, and build on an- 
other's foundation ? "What tradesman is there 
who will set up without his tools ?" 

His next plea is an adroit one : " My friends 
would have been forward to say, if I had 
taken ill courses, 'Follow your book, and 
you shall want nothing.' You know, sir, it 
is their ordinary speech, and now let them 
make it good ; for since, I hope, I have not 
deceived their expectation, let them not de- 
ceive mine. But; perhaps, they will say, 
' You are sickly ; you must not study too 
hard.' It is true (God knows) I am weak, 
yet not so but that every day I may step 
one step towards my journey's end ; and I 
love my friends so well, that if all things 
proved not well, I had rather the fault should 
lie on me than on them." 

His weak health has, he urges, forced him 
to expenditures. " You know I was sick last 
vacation ; neither am I yet recovered, so 
that I am fain, ever and anon, to buy some- 



STRAITENED CIRCUMSTANCES. 49 

what tending towards mj health, for in- 
firmities are both painful and costly. JN'ow, 
this Lent, I am forbid utterly to eat any fish, 
so that I am fain to diet in my chambers at 
my own cost ; for in our public halls, you 
know, is nothing but fish and w^hite meats. 
Out of Lent, also, twice a week, on Fridays 
and Saturdays, I must do so, which yet some- 
times I fast. Sometimes also I ride to IS'ew- 
market, and there lie a day or two for to 
refresh me ; all wdiich tend to avoiding cost- 
lier matters if I should fall absolutely sick. 
I protest and vow I even study thrift, and 
yet I am scarce able, with much ado, to 
make one half year's allow^ance shake hands 
with the other ; and yet, if a book of four or 
five shillings come in my way, I buy it, 
though I fast for it ; yea, sometimes of ten 
shillings. But, alas, sir, what is that to those 
infinite volumes of divinity which yet every 
day swell and grow bigger?" 

" Noble sir," he earnestly concludes, " par- 
5 



50 BOOKS FKOM ABEOAD. 

don my boldness, and consider but these 
three things. First, the bulk of divinity ; 
secondly, the time when I desire this (which 
is now when I must lay the foundation of 
my whole life) ; thirdly, what I desire, and 
to what end — not vain pleasures, nor to a 
vain end. If, then, sir, there be any course, 
either by engaging my future annuity, or 
any other way, I desire you, sir, to be my 
mediator with them on my behalf. IN'ow I 
write to you, sir, because to you I have ever 
opened my heart, and have reason, by the 
patent of your perpetual favor, to do so still, 
for I am sure you love 

" Your faithful servant, 

" Geoege Heebeet." 

In a second letter, without date, but writ- 
ten about the same time, he informs his 
father-in-law. that his brother Henry has pur- 
chased a parcel of books for him on the Con- 
tinent, and that they are now on the way 



WAYS AND MEANS. 61 

home. He proposes to pay for these in part 
by calling upon his sister for the sum of five 
or six pounds which she had previously of- 
fered him for the increase of his library ; but 
which he had at the time declined, as the 
books he required could not be obtained in 
the country. To meet the remaining indebt- 
edness, he proposes that his annuity from his 
father's estate should be doubled, on condi- 
tion that when he shall have obtained a 
benefice or parish, it shall entirely cease. 
This accomplished, "I shall forever after 
cease my clamorous and greedy bookish re- 
quests. It is high time," he concludes, " that 
I should be no more a burden to you, since I 
can never answer what I have already re- 
ceived ; for your favors are so ancient that 
they prevent my memory, and yet still grow 
upon " Your humble servant, 

"Geokge Herbekt." 

"I remember," he adds in a postscript, 



52 ANNUITIES. 

" my most humble duty to my mother ; 1 
have wrote to my dear sick sister this week 
already, and therefore now I hope may be 
excused." 

The sister was the invalid Lady Jones, of 
whom we have already spoken. We learn 
the circumstances of the annuity from Lord 
Herbert of Cherbury's Autobiography. 

" My father made either no will, or such 
an imperfect one, that it was not proved. 
My mother, though she had all my father's 
leases and goods, which were of great value, 
yet she desired me to undertake that burden 
of providing for my brothers and sisters, 
which, to gratify my mother as well as those 
so near me, I was voluntarily content to pro- 
vide thus far as to give my six brothers 
thirty pounds apiece yearly during their lives, 
and my three sisters a thousand pounds 
apiece, which portions married them to those 
I have above-mentioned." 

In addition to this thirty pounds a year, 



A KIND F^THEll-IX-LAW. 53 

Mr. Herbert was in the receipt of a smaller 
annual stipend from his fellowship. The 
total income is estimated by Mr. Willmott* 
as a fair allowance for the wants of a student 
at the period, money being then worth at 
least treble its present value. The some- 
what rash proposal respecting the annuity 
was probably not entertained. 

These letters furnish us with pleasant evi- 
dence of the kind relations existing between 
Herbert and Sir John Danvers. Another 
instance of the step-father's liberality and 
the student's gratitude will be found in the 
following quaintly worded acknowledgment 
of the gift of a horse : 

" Sm — Though I had the best wit in the 
world, yet it would easily tire me to find out 
variety of thanks for the diversity of your 
favors, if I sought to do so ; but I pro- 
fess it not ; and, therefore, let it be sufficient 

« Lives of Sacred Poets, p. 239. 
5^ 



54 FAVOES COME ON HOKSEBACK. 

for me that the heart which you have won 
long since, is still true to you, and hath noth- 
ing else to answer your infinite kindnesses 
but a constancy of obedience ; only, here- 
after, I will take heed how I propose my 
desires unto you, since I find you so willing 
to yield to my requests ; for since your favors 
come on horseback, there is reason that my 
desires should go on foot. ISTeither do I 
make any question but that you have per- 
formed your kindness to the full, and that 
the horse is every way fit for me, and I will 
strive to imitate the completeness of your 
love," etc. 



CHAPTEE Y. 

MR. HERBERT ORATOR OF THE UlSriVERSITY HIS LETTER 

TO KINa JAMES THE BASILIOOX DOROX ANDREW 

MELVIjST LORD BACON AND BISHOP ANDREWS HER- 
BERT'S GREEK LETTER HERBERT'S COURTIER TASTES 

AND HOPES HIS SINECURE MRS. HERBERT'S YIEWS 

DISAPPOINTMENT — SOCIAL POSITION OF THE CLERGY 

HERBERT'S VIEWS ON THE SUBJECT. 

OIT the 21st of October, 1619, Mr. Her- 
bert was appointed Orator of the Uni- 
versity. He explains the duties and priv- 
ileges of his new office in a letter written 
about this time to Sir John Danvers. 

" The orator's place (that jou may under- 
stand what it is) is the finest place in the 
University, though not the gainfullest ; yet 
that will be about £30 per annum, but the 
commodiousness is beyond the revenue ; for 



56 B A SILICON DORON. 

the orator writes all the University letters, 
makes all the orations, be it to King, Prince, 
or whatever comes to the University ; to re- 
quite these pains, he takes place next the 
doctors, is at all their assemblies and meet- 
ings, and sits above the proctors, is regent, 
or non-regent at his pleasm-e, and such like 
gaynesses, which will please a young man 
well." 

Herbert soon distinguished himself in his 
office. King James, who prided himself on 
his scholarship and literary ability, presented 
to the University a copy of a book which he 
had written, entitled, '' Basilicon Doron ; or. 
His Majesty's Instruction to his dearest son, 
Henry the Prince." It was published, some 
time after the date of its composition, in 
1599. Its good sense and w^ise counsel did 
much (it is said by Archbishop Spotswood 
and the great antiquarian Camden) to secure 
its author's accession to the throne of En- 
gland. It is the best of the King's numerous 



THE JEWEL OF THE tTNIVERSITY. 57 

writings. Henry the Prince was the eldest 
brother of Charles the First. He died in 
1612, at the age of nineteen. 

A fitting acknowledgment had, of course, 
to be rendered for the royal gift. The del- 
icate duty fell upon Mr. Herbert. His 
Latin letter of thanks was so well written, 
and its complimentary phrases so happily 
turned, that the monarch, greatly delighted, 
inquired of William, Earl of Pembroke, 
about its author. The nobleman replied, 
" That he knew him very well, and that he 
was his kinsman ; but he loved him more for 
his learning and virtue than for that he was 
of his name and family." "At which 
answer," says "Walton, " the King smiled, 
and asked the Earl leave 'That he might 
love him too ; for he took him to be the 
jewel of that University.' " 

The good opinion thus formed was in- 
creased as the King became personally ac- 
quainted with the orator. The royal visits 



68 EEPLY TO ANDREW MELVIN. 

to the University were, of course, occasions 
of great ceremony. The Orator was the 
spokesman of the learned body, and acquit- 
ted himself so much to the satisfaction of his 
hearer, that he was, on one occasion, sum- 
moned to attend the monarch during a hunt- 
ing excursion at Koyston, an estate not far 
distant from Cambridge. The King was so 
well pleased with his companion's conversa- 
tion that he afterwards remarked to the Earl 
of Pembroke, "That he found the Orator's 
learning and wisdom much above his age or 
wit." 

Mr. Herbert could, on occasion, blame as 
well as praise, satirize as well as compliment. 
His Latin verses in reply to certain bitter 
attacks on the English liturgy and ordinances 
by Andrew Melvin, a distinguished clergy- 
man of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, 
were regarded as happy in style and success- 
ful in argument. They were published in 
1662 by James Duport, Greek Professor of 



LETTER TO MRS. HERBERT. 69 

Cambridge, Dean of Peterborough and Master 
of Magdalen College, at the close of a volume 
of Latin verses from bis own pen. The pref- 
ace contains a brief but emphatic testimony 
from this eminent scholar and divine to the 
ability, learning, and piety of their author. 

A letter written at this period by Mr. Her- 
bert to his mother, then suffering from severe 
and long-continued illness, presents us with 
a beautiful evidence of his reverent and 
grateful affection. We quote a portion : 

" For myself, dear mother, I always feared 
sickness more than death ; because sickness 
hath made me unable to perform those offices 
for which I came into the world, and must 
yet be kept in it ; but you are freed from 
that fear, who have already abundantly dis- 
charged that part, having both ordered your 
family and so brought up your children that 
they have attained to the years of discretion 
and competent maintenance. So that now, 
if they do not well, the fault cannot be 



60 THE USE OF RICHES. 

cliarged on yon, whose example and care of 
them will jnstify yon both to the world and 
yonr own conscience ; insomnch that whether 
you turn your thoughts on the life past, or 
on the joys that are to come, you have 
strong preservatives against all disquiet. 
And for temporal affections I beseech you 
consider, all that can happen to you are 
either afflictions of estate, or body, or mind. 
For those of estate, of what poor regard ought 
they to be, since if we had riches we are 
commanded to give them away ? so that the 
best use of them is, having, not to have 
them. But, perhaps, being above the com- 
mon people, our credit and estimation calls 
on us to live in a more splendid fashion. 
But, O God! how easily is that answered, 
when we consider that the blessings in the 
holy Scripture are never given to the rich, 
but to the poor. I never find, ' Blessed be 
the rich,' or ' Blessed be the noble ;' but 
Blessed he the mee'k^ and Blessed he the poor^ 



AFFLICTIONS OF BODY AND SOUL. 61 

and Blessed he the laourners^for they shall 
he comforted. And yet, O God ! most cany 
tliemselves so as if they not only not desired, 
but even feared to be blessed. And for af- 
flictions of tlie body, dear Madam, remember 
the holy martyrs of God, how they have 
been burned by thousands, and have endured 
such other tortures as the very mention of 
them might beget amazement; but their 
fiery trials have had an end, and yours 
(which praised be God, are less) are not like 
to continue long. I beseech you, let such 
thoughts as these moderate your present fear 
and sorrow ; and know that if any of yours 
should prove a Goliah-like trouble, yet you 
may say with David, That God^ who de- 
livered me out of the i^aios of the lion and 
hear^ will also deliver me out of the hands of 
this xmcircumcised Philistine. Lastly, for 
those afflictions of the soul, consider that 
God intends that to be as a sacred temple for 
himself to dwell in, and will not allow any 
6 



62 REJOICE ALWAY. 

roo n there for such an inmate as grief, or 
allow that any sadness shall be his com- 
petitor. And, above all, if any care of future 
things molest you, remember those admirable 
words of the Psalmist : Cast thy care on the 
Lord^ and he shall nourish thee. (Psalm Iv.) 
To Avhich join that of St. Peter: Casting all 
your care on him^ for he careth for you. 
(1 Peter v. 7.) What an admirable thing is 
this, that God puts his shoulder to our burden, 
and entertains our care for us that we may 
the more quietly intend his service ! To con- 
clude, let me commend only one place more 
to you (Philip, iv. 4) ; St. Paul saith there, 
Rejoice in the Lord alway. And again I 
say^ rejoice. He doubles it to take away 
the scruple of those that might say, ' What ! 
shall we rejoice in afflictions ? Yes, I say 
again rejoice ; so that it is not left to us to 
rejoice or not rejoice ; but whatsoever befals 
us, we must always, at all times, rejoice in 
the Lord, who taketh care for us. And it 



LORD BACON. 63 

follows in the next verse : Let your rnodera- 
tion appear unto all men: The Lord is at 
hand : Be careful for nothing. What can 
be said more comfortably? Trouble not 
yourselves; God is at hand to deliver ns 
from all, or in all. Dear Madam, pardon my 
boldness, and accept the good meaning of 
" Your most obedient son, 

" Geokge Hekbeet." 

During one of the King's visits to the Uni. 
versity he was accompanied by Lord Bacon, 
and Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winchester. 
Both of these great men became acquainted 
with Mr. Herbert, and were soon warmly at- 
tached to him. Lord Bacon was afterwards 
accustomed to solicit Mr. Herbert's opinion 
before sending the manuscript of his works 
to the printer, and gave a public proof of his 
esteem by dedicating his translation of a por- 
tion of the Psalms of David to " his very 
good friend, Mr. George Herbert." 



64 BISHOP Andrews' letter. 

Bishop Andrews testified his respect by 
carrying about Avitli bim a letter written by 
Mr. Herbert in the Greek language after a 
long conversation between the two on " pre- 
destination and sanctity of life." " The 
Bishop," to quote the warm-hearted words of 
Walton, ''put it into his bosom, and did 
often show it to many scholars, both of this 
and foreign nations ; but did always return 
it back to the place where he first lodged it, 
and continued it so near his heart till the last 
day of his life." 

The favorable estimation in which the 
Orator was held by royalty easily led to fre- 
quent visits to the Court. It was but natural 
that a well-endowed young man, of good 
family, should be attracted to public life. 
He had every prospect of success. The King- 
had already bestowed upon him a sinecure, 
with a salary of two hundred j)ounds a year, 
an incident which connects his name pleas- 
antly with that of another gallant gentleman 



TOO SHAKP A WIT. 65 

and good Christian, Sir Pliilip Sidney, who 
had held the same easy office by the favor 
and in the days of " good Queen Bess." He 
could safely hope for other benefactions from 
the same high source. He saw his brothers 
already entering upon the wished-for career. 
He had the natural desire of a young and 
educated mind to visit foreign countries. 
His slight frame suffered from the effects of 
severe study and mental exertion. In his 
own words, " He had too thoughtful a wit ; 
a wit, like a pen-knife in too narrow a sheath, 
too sharp for his body." 

It must also be admitted that he betrayed 
some of the weaknesses of a courtier. Ac- 
cording to Bishop Williams in his " Life of 
Archbishop Hacket," "Mr. Herbert," on a 
public occasion in 1618, " passed by those 
fluent orators that domineered in the pulpits 
of Athens and Eome, and insisted to read 
upon an oration of IGng James, which he 
analyzed, showed the concinnity of the parts. 



66 COURTLY AMBITION. 

the propriety of the phrase, the height and 
power of it to move the affections, the style 
"Utterly unknown to the ancients, who could 
not conceive what Mngly eloquence was ; in 
respect of which those noted demagogi were 
but hirelings and tributary rhetoricians." 

"We also find that he absented himself 
from his college. "He seldom looked to- 
wards Cambridge," says "Walton, " nnless the 
King were there, but then he never failed." 
He looked, however, to a conrt life of public 
duty rather than of private ease, his ambi- 
tion pointing him to the office of Secretary 
of State, a position which had been held by 
earlier membei-s of his family. His mother, 
whose wise forethought had already, as we 
shall soon see, anticipated his appropriate 
career, " would by no means allow him to 
leave the University or to travel ; and though 
be inclined very much to both, yet he wonld 
by no means satisfy his own desires at so 
dear a rate as to prove an nndutiful son to so 



THE CHOICE. 07 

affectionate a motlier ; but did always submit 
to her wisdom." 

A liiglier power was, however, to settle 
the question. While thus undecided as to 
his future career, the death of two of his 
most j)owerful and attached friends, Lodo- 
wick, Duke of Eichmond, and James, Mar- 
quis of Hamilton, followed soon after by that 
of the King, removed the tempting hopes of 
court preferment. We next hear of him in 
the retirement of a friend's country residence 
in the pleasant county of Kent, near Lon- 
don, where he passed through his last debate 
between a court and a clerical life. We now 
find his mother exerting her powerful in- 
fluence in favor of the latter. His choice 
was made not long after. The ^'painted 
pleasures of a court life," still attractive, 
for he still possessed good position, and 
could command powerful influence, were 
abandoned for the highest of earthly voca- 
tions. 



68 SOCIAL POSITION OF THE CLERGY. 

, The ministry was not then held in the 
same social esteem as at present. Mr. Her- 
bert was urged by " a court friend" in Lon- 
don to give up his proposed calling '' as too 
mean an employment, and too much below 
his birth, and the excellent abilities and en- 
dowments of his mind." His reply was in 
these earnest, sensible, and memorable 
words: "It hath been formerly adjudged 
that the domestic servants of the King of 
heaven should be of the noblest families on 
earth ; and though the iniquity of the late 
times have made clergymen meanly valued, 
and the sacred name of Priest contemptible ; 
yet I w^ill labor to make it honorable by con- 
secrating all my learning and all my poor 
abilities to advance the glory of that God 
that gave them ; knowing that I can never 
do too much for him that hath done so much 
for me as to make me a Christian. And I 
will labor to be like my Saviour, by making 
humility lovely in the eyes of all men, and 



POSITION OF THE CLERGY. 69 

by following the merciful and meek ex- 
ample of my dear Jesus." 

Tliis j)assage is interesting not only as 
showing us the struggle in Herbert's mind, 
but also as throwing light upon the position 
of the clergy at that time. In studying 
biography we must always strive to identify 
ourselves with the age in which the hero of 
our story lived. The passage we have quot- 
ed was written near the commencement of 
the reign of Charles the First. It was not 
long since Protestantism had been estab- 
lished in England. The Church had been 
disturbed by those who sided with the views 
of the Continental reformers. The gift of 
livings, or " calls," as we term them, was in 
the hands of the nobles and landed pro- 
prietors, and favoritism could hardly fail to 
be exercised in the appointments to bene- 
fices. All of these circumstances affected 
the social rank of the clergy. 



CHAPTEE YI. 

MR. HEEBERT 0RDAI]S:ED DEACON — PREBENDARY OF LEIGH- 
TON RESTORATION OF THE PARISH CHURCH — HIS MO- 
THER'S OBJECTIONS THE EARL OF PEMBROKE " SID- 
NEY'S SISTER, Pembroke's mother" — death of mrs. 

HERBERT DR. DONNe's FUNERAL SERMON MR. HER- 
BERT'S VERSES TO HIS MOTHER's MEMORY DR. DONNE'S 

RINGS "the anchor AND CHRIST." 

MK. HEKBEET at once commenced his 
divinity studies, and was, within a few 
months, ordained Deacon. He was soon 
after appointed Prebendary of Leighton, a 
village in the county of Huntingdon. 

A Prebendary is one of the officers of a ca- 
thedral, and is so called " from the assistance 
which the Church afforded him in meat, 
drink, and other necessaries," a prebend being 
" an endowment in land, or pension in 
money, given to a cathedral or conventual 



"Ill ii. 




'igiiiSi iiir'""!' 



LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. 71 

cliurcli in jprcebendutn : that is, for a main- 
tenance of a secular priest or regular canon, 
wlio was a Prebendary, as supported by the 
said prebend." The office in Mr. Herbert's 
time could be held by a layman, as it was 
not until the thirteenth year of the reign of 
King Charles the Second that the law re- 
quiring all persons holding such offices to be 
in priests' orders, was passed.* 

By the acceptance of this prebend Mr. 
Herbert became connected with the Cathedral 
of Lincoln, one of the largest and most im- 
portant of the great religious endowments of 
England. These, founded long before the 
Reformation, were fortunately preserved, 
during the unavoidable confusion attending 
that great and happy change for the benefit 
of the national Church. 

The church of the parish in which Mr. 
Herbert's prebend was situated had for 

* Bum's Ecclesiastical Law, II., 88. 



72 RESTORATION OF LEIGHTON CHURCH. 

twenty years past remained in such a di- 
lapidated condition as to be almost useless. 
Some slight attempts had been made to pro- 
vide the means to put it in a proper con- 
dition for the celebration of public worship, 
but without success. Mr. Herbert at once 
resolved to undertake this important matter. 
His careful mother endeavored to restrain 
him. " It is not," she said, " for your weak 
body and empty purse to undertake to build 
churches." He in reply desired her to grant 
him a day's delay for consideration. This 
obtained and passed, he returned to her. 
Having asked and received her blessing, he 
begged "That she would, at the age of 
thirty-three years, allow him to become an 
undutiful son; for he had made a vow to 
God, that if he were able he would rebuild 
that church." He then explained his plan 
to her with such happy success that she be- 
came a contributor to the good work, and 
obtained a subscription of fifty pounds from 



ARTHUR WOOBNOT. 73 

a wealthy and generous kinsman, William, 
Earl of Pembroke. This gentleman was the 
son of Mary, the sister of Sir Philip Sidney, 
a lady highly esteemed for her virtues and 
accomplishments. Her character is well ex- 
pressed in her epitaph, one of the most cele- 
brated compositions of its class : 

Underneath this marble hearse 
Lies the subject of all verse, 
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother. 
Death, ere thou hast slain another, 
Wise, and fair, and good as she, 
Time shall throw a dart at thee. 

Another liberal contributor was Mr. Arthur 
Woodnot. Mr. Walton introduces this gen- 
tleman to us in these happy words : 

" He was a man that had considered over- 
grown estates do often require more care 
and watchfulness to preserve than get them ; 
and considered that there be many discon- 
tents that riches cure not, and did therefore 
set limits to himself as to desire of wealth ; 
and having attained so much as to be able to 
7 



^^ LIBERAL CHURCHMEN. 

show some mercy to the poor, and preserve 
a competence for himself, he dedicated the 
remaining part of his life to the service of 
God, and to be nseful for his friends ; and 
he proved to be so to Mr. Herbert, for beside 
his own bounty, he collected and returned 
most of the money that was paid for the re- 
building of that church ; he kept all the ac- 
count of the charges, and would often go down 
to state them, and see all the workmen paid." 
Mr. Herbert's friend, ]^icholas Ferrar, was 
also a contributor. A letter in the poet's 
handwriting warmly acknowledging this as- 
sistance, is still preserved.* Other friends 
gave their aid ; the Prebendary drew largely 
from his private means, and the sacred 
edifice was gradually so repaired and beau- 
tified as to be excelled by few of its class in 
the land. A recent contributor to "Notes 
and Queries" informs us that he made a 

* Notes and Queries, X., 68. 



CHURCH ARRANGEMENTS. 75 

journey to Leighton for the express purpose 
of visting an edifice so prominently connected 
with the career of George Herbert. His in- 
teresting narrative traces from the unerring 
indications of architectural style the " resto- 
rations" made by the poet. The edifice was 
new roofed throughout, a tower built, four 
windows placed in the chancel, and a font, 
pulpit, reading-desk, and seats provided by 
his pious care. The internal arrangements, 
made, of course, under his supervision, fur- 
nish important evidence respecting his taste 
in these respects. Tlie seats, both in the 
nave and transept, are open, and so arranged 
that the occupants in service-time all face 
the chancel and officiating clergyman. The 
font is placed at the west end of the nave, 
near the entrance. The chancel is raised 
one step above the nave. The communion 
table stands three steps higher.* 

o Notes and Queries, III., 178. 





■:&»£ 



78 

from the severe illness during whicli her son 
addressed to her the beautiful letter already 
familiar to us. Her friend Dr. Donne 
preached, on the first of July, her funeral 
sermon at the parish church of Chelsea, then 
a pleasant village on the banks of the 
Thames, a little above London, now well- 
nigh absorbed in the solid advance of the 
monster city. We extract a few passages, 
for their biographical interest, and the noble 
example they present of a Christian life, 
from this eloquent discourse. 

" She lived in a time wherein the proph- 
ecy of St. Peter was over-abundantly per- 
formed, that there should be scoffers, jesters 
in divine things, and matters appertaining to 
God and his religion. ^ ■^' This being the 
air and the complexion of the wit of her 
times, and her inclination and conversation 
naturally cheerful and merry, and loving fa- 
cetiousness and sharpness of wit ; neverthe- 
less, who ever saw her, who ever heard 



WEEK-DAT PRAYERS. 7^ 

her countenance a profane speech, how sharp 
soever, or take part with wit, to the prejudice 
of godliness ? From this I testify her holy 
cheerfulness and religious alacrity (one of 
the best evidences of a good conscience), that 
as she came to this place, God's house of 
prayer, duly, not only every Sabbath, when 
it is the house of other exercises, as well as 
of prayer, but even in those week-days, 
when it was only a house of prayer, as often 
as these doors were open for a holy convoca- 
tion ; and, as she ever hastened her family 
and her comj^any hither with that cheerful 
provocation. For God's sake let us go ; for 
God's sake let us be there at the confession ; 
so herself, with her whole family (as a church 
in that elect lady's house, to whom John 
wrote the Second Epistle) did, every Sab- 
bath, shut up the day, at night, with a cheer- 
ful singing of psalms ; this act of cheerfulness 
was still the last act of that family, united in 
itself, and with God. God loves a cheerful 



80 CHARITIES. 

giver — mucli more, a cheerful giver of him- 
self. Truly, he that can close his eyes in a 
holy cheerfulness, every night, shall meet no 
distempered, no inordinate, no irregular sad- 
ness then, when God, by the hand of death, 
shall close his eyes at last. -^^ ^ * * * 

" She gave not at some great days or some 
solemn goings abroad, but, as God's true 
almoners, the sun and moon, that pass on in 
a continual doing of good, as she received 
her daily bread from God, so daily she dis- 
tributed and imparted it to others. In which 
office, though she never turned her face from 
those who, in a strict inquisition, might be 
called idle and vagrant beggars ; yet she 
ever looked first upon them who laboured, 
and whose labours could not overcome the 
difficulties, nor bring in the necessities of this 
life ; and to the sweat of their brows she con- 
tributed even her wine, and her oil, and any- 
thing that was, and anything that might be, 
if it were not prepared for her own table. 



CARE OF THE SICK. 81 

And as her house was a court, in the conver- 
sation of the best, and an ahnshouse in feed- 
ing the poor, so was it also an hospital in 
ministering relief to the sick. And truly the 
love of doing good in this kind, of minister- 
ing to the sick, was the honey that was 
spread over all her bread ; the air, the per- 
fume that breathed over all her house ; the 
disposition that dwelt in those her children, 
and those her kindred which dwelt with her, 
so bending this way that the studies and 
knowledge of one, the hand of another, and, 
purse of all, and a joint faculty and open- 
ness, and accessibleness to persons of the 
meanest quality, concurred in this blessed 
act of charity to minister relief to the sick, 
of which, myself, who at that time had the 
favour to be admitted into that family, can 
and must testify this, that when the late 
heavy visitation fell hotly upon this town, 
when every door was shut up, and lest death 
should enter into the house, every house was 



82 THE SCRIPTURE AND THE CHURCH. 

made a sepulchre of them that were in it, 
then, then, in that time of infection, divers 
persons visited with that infection, had their 
relief, and relief applicable to that very in- 
fection from this house. * ^ * * * 

" As the rule of all her civil actions was 
religion, so the rule of her religion was the 
Scripture ; and her rule for her particular 
understanding of the Scripture was the 
Church. She never diverted towards the 
papist in undervaluing the Scripture, nor 
towards the separatist, in undervaluing the 
Church. But in the doctrine and discipline 
of that Church in which God sealed her to 
himself in baptism, she brought up her chil- 
dren, she assisted her family, she dedicated 
her soul to God in her life, and surrendered 
it to him in her death ; and in that form of 
common prayer which is ordained by that 
Church, and to which she had accustomed 
herself with her family twice every day, she 
joined with that company, which was about 



83 

her death -bed, in answering to every part 
thereof, which the congregation is directed to 
answer to, with a clear understanding, with 
a constant memory, with a distinct voice, not 
two hours before she died. According to 
this promise, that is, the will of God mani- 
fested in the Scriptures, she expected this, 
that she hath received God's physic, and 
God's music, a Christianly death. * * * 
" How may we think she was joyed to see 
that face that angels delight to look upon, 
the face of her Saviour, that did not abhor 
the face of her faithfulest messenger, death ? 
She showed no fear of his face, in any 
change of her own, but died without any 
change of countenance or posture, with- 
out any struggling, any disorder ; but her 
death-bed was as quiet as her grave. To 
another Magdalen* Christ said upon earth. 
Touch me not, for I am not ascended. Being 

- This, it will be remembered, was Lady Danvers' 
Christian name. 



S4 RESURRECTION. 

ascended now to liis glory, and she being 
gone np to liim, after she had awaited her 
leisure so many years, as that more would 
soon have grown to be vexation and sorrow, 
as her last words here were, I submit my 
will to the will of God ; so we doubt not 
but the first word which she heard there was 
that euge^ from her Saviour, Well done, good 
and faithful servant, enter into thy Master's 

lOV. * 4f * -Sf * 4f * 

In which expectation (of the resurrection) 
she returns to her former charity; she will 
not have that till we all shall have it as well 
as she. She ate not her morsels alone, in her 
life (as Job speaks'^") ; she looks not for the 
glory of the resurrection alone, after her 
death ; but when we all shall have been 
mellowed in the earth many years, or 
changed in the air, in the twinkling of an 
eye (God knows which), that body upon 

* Job xxxi. 17. 



ETERNITY. 85 

which you tread now — that body which 
now, whilst I speak, is mouldering and 
crumbling into less and less dust, and so 
hath some motion, though no life ; that 
body, which was the tabernacle of a holy 
soul, and a temple of the Holy Ghost ; that 
body, which was eyes to the blind and 
hands and feet to the lame whilst it lived, 
and being dead, is so still, by having been so 
lively an example to teach others to be so, 
that body, at last, shall have her last expec- 
tation satisfied, and dwell bodily, with that 
righteousness, in these new heavens and new 
earth, forever and ever, and ever, and in- 
finite and super-infinite evers." 

Isaak Walton "saw and heard" — he in- 
forms us — " Mr. John Donne weep and 
preach" this sermon. It was published in 
the same year, with some Latin and Greek 
verses by George Herbert, to the memory of 
his parent. Our extracts are taken from 
the reprint in the sixth volume of the com- 
8 



86 A LONG AND DEAR FKIENDSHEP. 

plete edition of Donne's Works, edited by 
the Rev. Henry Alford, Dean of Canter- 
bury.* 

The preacher survived the lady whose 
virtues he so eloquently commemorated 
about three years. His intimacy witli her 
son continued unimpaired to the last. " It 
was," "Walton remarks, " a long and dear 
friendship, made up by such a sympathy of 
inclinations, that they coveted and joyed to 
be in each other's company ; and this happy 
friendship was still maintained by many sa- 
cred endearments." One of these was the 
presentation by Donne, not long before his 
death, to Herbert, of one of a few seals, of 
heliotrope or bloodstone, on which he had 
caused to be engraved " a figure of the body 
of Christ extended upon an anchor." These 
were sent to his particular friends, among 

* The verses are reprinted in the excellent edition of 
Herbert's "Remains," published at London, in 1835, 
by William Pickering. 



A PRESENT. 87 

whom are enumerated the great names of Sir 
Hemy Wotton, Bishop Hall, Dr. Duppa, 
Bishop King, and George Herbert. The seal 
sent to Herbert was accompanied by some 
verses, a portion of which we extract. 

TO ME. GEORGE HERBERT, 

SENT HIM WITH ONE OP MY SEALS OF THE ANCHOR AND 
CHRIST. 

Adopted in God's family, and so 
My old coat lost, into new arms I go. 
The cross my seal in baptism spread below, 
Does by that form into an anchor grow. 
Crosses grow anchors, bear as thou shouldst do 
Thy cross, and that cross grows an anchor too. 

This gift was found, after Mr. Her- 
bert's death, wrapped up with these 
couplets : 

' * When my dear friend conld write no more. 
He gave this seal, and so gave o'er. 
When winds and waves rise highest, I am sure 
This anchor keeps my faith, thxit me secure.' ' 

Our engraving of the seal is copied from 
a drawing in the London Gentleman's Mag- 




88 THE SEAL. 

azine, said to have been taken from an im- 
pression of the one actually presented by Dr. 
Donne to Mr. Herbert. It differs in shape 
only from the small oval representation en- 
graved in the editions of Walton's Life. 



CHAPTEK YH. 

MR. HEEBERT's illness — VISITS TO WOODFORD AND 

DAHNTSEY EPITAPH ON LORD DANVERS HIS POEM, 

"affliction" JANE DANVERS CHANGES HER NAME 

INTO HERBERT — WALTON's ACCOUNT OF THEIR MAR- 
RIED LIFE — BISHOP SANDERSON. 

WE next hear of Mr. Herbert in the year 
1629, when he was obliged, in conse- 
quence of a severe ague, to seek a change of 
air. He became the guest of his brother, Sir 
Henry Herbert, at Woodford, Essex, where 
he passed a twelvemonth. He suffered at 
times severely from his disease, but always 
preserved patience and resignation, showing 
himself, in the happy phrase of Walton, " in- 
clinable to bear the sweet yoke of Christian 
discipline." He is said to have mastered his 
disease by forbearing from the use of any 
8* 



90 LORD DAJ^^VERS. 

but salted meats. The ague was, howeyer, 
succeeded by a worse malady, symptoms of 
consumption manifesting themselves. To 
combat this new evil, he removed to 
Dauntsey, in Wiltshire, " a noble house 
which stands in a clioice air," the resi- 
dence of his friend Henry Danvers, Earl of 
Danby. 

The poet commemorated his friend in the 
following lines. They were fortunately not 
needed for their apparent purpose until long 
after the time of their composition, as the 
Earl did not die before the twentieth day of 
Janu? y, 1673. 

ON LORD DANVEES. 
Sacred marble, safely keep 
His dust, who under thee must sleep 
Until the years again restore 
Their dead, and time shall be no more. 
Meanwhile, if he (which all things wears) 
Does ruin thee, or if thy tears 
Are shed for him, dissolve thy frame, 
Thou art requited ; for his fame, 
His virtue, and his worth shall be 
Another monument to thee. 



AFFLICTION. 91 

The " choice air" of Daimtsey, aided by 
moderate exercise, careful diet, and mental 
repose, soon produced its usual beneficial 
effect. 

One of his finest poems, entitled Afflic- 
tion, was, it is thought, composed about this 
time : 

When first thou did'st entice to thee my heart, 

I thought the service brave ; 
So many joys I writ down for my part, 

Besides what I might have 
Out of my stock of natural delights, 
Augmented with thy gracious benefits. 

« «- c- o « 

At first thou gavest me milk and sweetnesses ; 

I had my wish and way : 
My days were strew' d with flowers and happiness ; 

There was no month but May. 
But with my years sorrow did twist and grow, 
And made a party unawares for woe. 

My flesh began unto my soul in pain, 

Sicknesses clave my bones, 
Consuming agues dwell in every vein, 

And turn my breath to groans : 
Sorrow was all my soul ; I scarce believed. 
Till grief did tell me roundly, that I lived. 



92 EMPLOYMENT, AND IMAN. 

Whereas my birth and spirit rather took 
The way that takes the town, 

Thou didst betray nie to a lingering book, 
And wrap me in a gown : 

I was entangled in the world of strife. 

Before I had the power to change my life. 

<S O O Q o 

Now I am here, what thon wilt do with me 
None of my books will show : 

I read, and sigh, and wish I were a tree ; 
For sure then I should grow 

To fruit or shade : at least some bird would trust 

Her household to me, and I should be just. 

Yet, though thou troublest me, I must be meek ; 

In weakness must be stout. 
Well, I will change the service, and go seek 

Some other master out. 
Ah, my dear God ! though I am clean forgot, 
Let me not love thee, if I love thee not. 

Several of liis poems exhibit a similar 

vein of feeling. In "Employment" he nobly 

remarks : 

Life is a business, not good cheer ; 
Ever in wars. 

In "Man:" 

More servants wait on man 
Than he'll take notice of ; in every path 
He treads down that which doth befriend him, 
When sickness makes him pale and wan. 



CHARLES DANVEES. 



as 



In " Frailty" he strikingly contrasts ^^ both 
regiments :" 

The world's and Thine, 
Thine clad with simpleness and sad events, 
The other fine.-' 

It was during his stay at Dauntsey that Mr. 
Herbert first met his future wife. The story 
of the wooing and winning is a pleasant one. 

The lady, Jane Danvers, was one of the 
nine daughters of Mr. Charles Danvers, of 
Bainton, a gentleman of fortune and high 
social position, a near relative and neigh- 
bor of the Earl of Danby. He was inti- 
mately acquainted with Mr. Herbert, and 
60 much pleased with his manners and char- 
acter, that he frequently expressed a hope 
that his young friend might marry one of his 
daughters, "but rather his daughter Jane 



• «- How the blessed names of those who have suffered 
and died in defence of our religion, arise to our remem- 
brance, when we read these words ! We think of Lati- 
mer, of Cranmer, and Eidley, and the glorious company 
of sainted martyrs, whom they guided unto eternal glory. 
— WiUmoU'S Lives of -the Sacred Poets. 



94 A PREPARATION FOR A MARRIAGE. 

than any other, because Jane was his be- 
loved daughter." He praised Jane to Mr. 
Herbert and Mr. Herbert to Jane, and ex- 
pressed his wishes freely to both. This, as 
Mr. "Walton remarks, was " a fair preparation 
for a marriage." The father, however, died 
before any other steps were taken in the 
matter, and before Mr. Herbert removed to 
Dauntsey. Some friends of the family, how- 
ever, remembering the father's wishes, and 
agreeing in his opinion, in this respect, of the 
fitness of things, procured a meeting between 
the two. 

The lady is described by Aubrey, a rela- 
tive, who probably knew her well, in quaint 
old terms of high commendation, as a "hand- 
some hona ro'ba'^ and generose." The same 

■•'■ Aubrey applies the same teim to the celebrated 
beauty, Lady Venetia Stanley, the wife of Sir Kenelm 
Digby . * ' She had a perfect healthy constitution ; strong ; 
good skin ; well proportioned ; enclining to a, Bona Eoba." 
(Lives, etc., II., 332.) He seems to mean by it a fuU, 
well-rounded figure. 



A HAPPY PAIR. 95 

writer informs us tliat Mr. Herbert possessed 
" a very fine complexion." He is portrayed 
to us by "Walton as being " of a stature inclin- 
ing towards tallness ; his body was very 
straight, and so far from being cumbered 
with too much flesh, that he was lean to an 
extremity." 

The result soon proved that the pair liked 
one another as much as had been anticipated, 
for on the third day after this first interview 
the lady " changed her name into Herbert." 
The romantic marriage "turned out" most 
happily. ''The eternal lover of mankind," 
"Walton beautifully remarks, " made them 
happy in each other's mutual and equal 
affections and compliance ; indeed, so happy 
that there never was any opposition betwixt 
them, unless it were a contest which should 
most incline to a compliance with the other's 
desires. And though this begot, and con- 
tinued in them, such a mutual love, and joy, 
and content, as was no way defective ; yet 



96 

tMs mutual content, and love, and joj, did 
receive a daily augmentation, by such daily 
obligingness to each otlier as still added such 
new affluences to the former fulness of these 
divine souls, as was only improvable in 
heaven, where they now enjoy it." We may 
be allowed to add to this passage another by 
the same writer, equally happy in applica- 
tion and expression, on the marriage of his 
friend. Bishop Sanderson. " The Giver of 
all good things was so good to him as to give 
him such a wife as was suitable to his own 
desires ; a wife that made his life haj)py, by 
being always content when he was cheerful ; 
that was always cheerful when he was con- 
tent; that divided her joys with him, and 
abated of his sorrow, by bearing a part of 
that burden; a wife that demonstrated her 
affection by a cheerful obedience to all his 
desires, during the whole course of his life ; 
and at his death, too, for she outlived him. 



CHAPTEE YIII. 

BEMEETON — KING CHAELES' ADMIEATION OF HERBERT — 
" SPIRITUAL conflicts" BISHOP LAUD MR. HER- 
BERT'S INDUCTION " TOLLING THE BELL" A RETRO- 
SPECT THE "minister's WIFE " COMFORTABLE 

SPEECH TO AN OLD WOMAN THE PARISH CHURCH AND 

PARSONAGE REPAIRED THE FIRST SERMON. 

A BOUT three months after Mr. Herbert's 
/X marriage, the parish of Bemerton be- 
came vacant by the appointment of the rector, 
Dr. Curie, to the Bishopric of Bath and 
"Wells. Philip, Earl of Pembroke (the suc- 
cessor of William, now dead), requested the 
King to bestow the living on his kinsman, 
Herbert. " Most willingly to Mr. Herbert, 
if it be worth his acceptance," was the kind 
reply. It shows the monarch's high appre- 
ciation of the poet and scholar. We meet 
with another proof of this feeling many years 
9 



98 SPIKITUAJ. CONFLICTS. 

after. During the King's imprisonment by 
the parliamentarian party, then in power, 
the Poems of George Herbert, with the Bible 
and two or three other books, were his con- 
stant comj^anions.* 

Mr. Herbert seems to have been much 
perplexed as to whether he should accept or 
decline the position tendered to him. The 
responsibility of the care of souls weighed 
heavily on his conscientious and sensitive 
mind. He considered the question, with 
fasting and prayer, for over a month, suffer- 
ing, as he often remarked, "such spiritual 
conflicts as none can think but only those 
that have endured them." 

Mr. Herbert was at this time spending the 
pleasant season following his marriage with 
his white's relations at Bainton. Here he 



« Willmott's Lives of the Sacred Poets. The King's 
copy of Herbert is said to have been preserved, and was 
at one time in the library of "Tom Martin of Palgrave." 
— Dibdin's Library Companion. 



BISHOP LAUD. 99 

received the congratulations of " liis own and 
his father's friend," Mr. Arthur Woodnot, 
who had made a journey expressly on this 
pleasant errand. After the friends had " re- 
joiced together some few days," they visited 
Wilton Hall, the noble country seat of the 
Pembrokes, w^liere the Earl was at that time 
entertaining the King and court. Mr. Her- 
bert, in presenting his thanks to the Earl for 
the appointment to Bemerton, acquainted 
him with his doubts as to his acceptance. 
The Earl, sensible of his kinsman's fitness, 
laid the matter before Dr. Laud, then Bishop 
of London, who afterwards, as Archbishop of 
Canterbury, suffered on the scaffold for his 
attachment to the Church of England, and 
his occasionally unwise administration of her 
affairs. 

The earnest prelate had an interview the 
next day with Mr. Herbert, and, says Wal- 
ton, " did so convince Mr. Herbert that the 
refusal of it was a sin, that a tailor was sent 



100 CANONICAL CLOTHES. 

for to come s]3eedily from Salisbury to Wil- 
ton, to take measure and make liim canonical 
clothes against (that is, for) next day ; which 
the tailor did." If, as we may infer from 
this, we owe Herbert's acceptance of Bemer- 
ton to Archbishop Laud's influence, it is a 
service to the Church which should not be 
forgotten in our estimate of his career. 
Prompt action followed the delayed decision. 
Herbert, arrayed in the dress a]3propriate to 
his profession, which he does not aj)pear to 
have previously assumed, probably following 
in this respect the custom of the day, ob- 
served by those only in Deacon's orders, 
applied immediately to Dr. Davenant, the 
Bishop of the diocese, for institution. The 
request was promptly complied wdth, and he 
w^as on the same day, April 26, 1630, induct- 
ed into " the good, and more pleasant than 
healthful. Parsonage of Bemerton." 

After his induction the new Pector was, in 
compliance with a legal requirement, left 




Remerton Church. 



Gi:0 IlEIJBERT, 



Page lOo. 



TOLLING THE BELL. 101 

alone in the cliurch to toll tlie bell.* His 
friend Mr. Woodnot, who with others was 
waiting for him outside, noticing that he re- 
mained mnch beyond the usual time, looked 
in at the window and saw him prostrate on 
the ground before the altar ; " at which time 
and place (as he after told Mr. Woodnot) he 
set some rules to himself for the future man- 

- ' * The induction is to be made according to the tenor 
and language of the mandate, by vesting the incumbent 
with full possession of all the profits belonging to the 
church. Accordingly the inductor usually takes the clerk 
by the hand and lays it upon the key, or upon the ring 
of the church door, or if the key cannot be had, and there 
is no ring on the door, or if the church be ruinated, then 
on any part of the wall of the church or church-yard, and 
saith to this effect : ' By virtue of this mandate, I do in- 
duct you into the real, actual, and corporal possession of 
this church of C, with all the rights, profits, and appur- 
tenances thereto belonging.' After which the inductor 
opens the door, and puts the person inducted into the 
church, who usually tolls a bell to make his induction 
public and known to the parishioners— which being done, 
the clergyman who inducted indorseth a certificate of his 
induction on the archdeacon's mandate, and they who 
were presentdo testify the same under their hands." — 
Johns. y 77 ; Wats., c. 15 ; Burn's Ecclesiastical Law, 8th 
Ed., 1824, Vol. I., 173. 

9* 



102 LOOKING BACK AND LOOKING FOEWAED. 

age of liis life ; and then and there made a 
vow to labor and keep them." 

The two friends passed the evening of the 
eventful day together. In the course of their 
conversation, Mr. Herbert expressed himself 
earnestly respecting his past life and the 
career now opening before him. " I now 
look back upon my aspiring thoughts," he 
said, " and think myself more happy than if 
I had attained what then I so ambitiously 
thirsted for. And I can now behold the 
court with an impartial eye, and see plainly 
that it is made np of fraud, and titles, and 
flattery, and many other such empty, imag- 
inary, painted pleasures — pleasures that are 
BO empty as not to satisfy when they are en- 
joyed. But in God and his service is a ful- 
ness of all joy and pleasure and no satiety. 
And I will now use all my endeavours to 
bring my relations and dependants to a love 
and reliance on Him who never fails those 
that trust him. But above all, I will be sure 



A peiest's wife. 103 

to live well, because tlie virtuous life of a cler- 
gyman is the most powerful eloquence to 
persuade all that see it to reverence and love, 
and this I will do, because I know we live in 
an age that hath more need of good exam- 
ples than precepts." 

The third day after his induction he re- 
turned with Mr. Woodnot to Bainton, and 
after saluting his wife, said to her, " You are 
now a minister's wife, and must now so far 
forget your father's house as not to claim a 
precedence of any of your parishioners ; for 
you are to know that a Priest's wife can 
challenge no precedence or place but that 
which she purchases by her obliging humil- 
ity ; and I am sure places so purchased do 
best become them. And let me tell you that 
I am so good a herald as to assure you that 
this is truth." " And she," says Walton, 
was so meek a wife as to assure him it was 
no vexing news to her, and that he should 
see her observe it with a cheerful willing- 



104 THE TIMID OLD WOMAN. 

ness. And, indeed, her unforced humility, 
that humility that was in her so original as 
to be born with her, made her so happy as 
to do so ; and her doing so begat her an un- 
feigned love, and a serviceable respect from 
all that conversed with her ; and this love 
followed her in all places as inseparably as 
shadows follow substances in sunshine." 

He soon after returned to Bemerton to 
make arrangements to repair the chancel of 
the church, and rebuild a great portion of the 
parsonage, which had fallen into a ruinous 
condition, in consequence of the former rec- 
tor having resided at a better house at Minal, 
some sixteen or twenty miles distant. While 
occupied about this examination, he was ac- 
costed by an old woman w^ho came to him 
for relief for her troubles of body and mind, 
but was so humble and timid, that " after she 
had spoke some few words to him she was 
surprised with a fear, and that begot a short- 
ness of breath, so that her spirits and speech 



COMFOET AND CASH. 105 

failed her." Mr. Herbert perceiving this, 
took her by the hand and reassured her with 
these kind words : " Speak, good mother ; 
be not afraid to speak to me, for I am a man 
that will hear you with patience, and will re- 
lieve your necessities too, if I be able ; and 
this I will do willingly ; and therefore, moth- 
er, be not afraid to acquaint me with what 
you desire." " After which comfortable 
speech," says Walton, '' he again took her by 
the hand, made her sit down by him, and 
understanding she was of his parish, he told 
her ' he would be acquainted with her, and 
take her into his care ;' and having with pa- 
tience heard and understood her wants (and 
it is some relief for a poor body to be but 
heard with patience), he, like a Christian 
clergyman, comforted her by his meek be- 
havior and counsel ; but because that cost 
him nothing, he relieved her with money too, 
and so sent her home with a cheerful heart, 
praising God and praying for him." On his 



106 INSCRIPTION IN THE PARSONAGE. 

return to Bainton in the evening, lie men- 
tioned tlie incident to liis wife ; she, like a 
good lielp-mate, sjmpatliizing with and aid- 
ing her husband in his good endeavors, went 
the next day to Salisbury, where she pur- 
chased a pair of blankets, which were sent to 
the old woman, who, in this comfortable 
plight, disa]3pears from our history. 

The parish church, under Mr. Herbert's 
active supervision, was soon repaired. He 
also constructed, on the ruins of the old par- 
sonage, a new and commodious edifice of 
brick, with a handsome garden. The follow- 
ing inscription was placed, by his direction, 
over the mantel of the chimney in the hall. 

TO MY SUCCESSOR. 
If thou chance for to find 
A new house to thy mind, 
And built without thy cost : 

Be good to the poor, 

As God gives thee store, 
And then my labor's not lost. 

Mr. Herbert received Priest's orders soon 



A FmST SEEMON. 107 

after his induction, his friend Dr. Humphrey 
Henchman, afterwards Bishop of London, 
taking part in the ceremonies. 

The new rector took the text for his first 
sermon from the Proverbs of Solomon, " Keep 
thy heart with all diligence." It was, says 
"Walton, " delivered after a most florid man- 
ner, both with great learning and eloquence." 
At its close he told his hearers " That should 
not be his constant way of preaching ; for 
since Almighty God does not intend to lead 
men to heaven by hard questions, he would 
not therefore fill their heads with unnecessary 
notions, but that, for their sakes, his language 
and his expressions should be more plain and 
practical in his future sermons." He then 
dismissed them, with an urgent request to be 
constant in their attendance on the afternoon 
service and catechising. 



CHAPTER IX. 

A SUNDAY AT BEMEETON IN 1839 — WILTON HALL — THE 
NEW HEEBEET " TEMPLE " A PEEP THEOUGn A WIN- 
DOW. 

BEMEETON, in wliicli we have now found 
Mr. Herbert firmly established, is a little 
hamlet near Salisbury, a town made mem- 
orable by the possession of one of the largest 
and most beautiful cathedrals in England or 
the world. Tlie yillage church is as humble 
as the place, being but forty-five feet in 
length by eighteen in breadth. 

An American lover of Herbert who at- 
tended divine service at the Bemerton 
church on a pleasant Sunday morning in the 
autumn of 1839, describes the place as "a 
collection of houses and hay-stacks heaped 
together over a meadow, to the left of the 



BEMEKTON HOUSES. 109 

road. They looked appropriate, and I was 
willing to accept them for the spot. It was 
Bemerton. A rudely-ke23t cart-track led 
down to a little irregular street of thatched 
houses, inclosed in farm-yards that made up 
all the pretensions of the parish. It was 
humble, to be sure ; but it was j)icturesque. 
The thatch, it could not be disputed, was 
graceful, covering the windows and gables 
like a heavy eyebrow or a huge, projecting 
snowdrift. I took the left turning, and in a 
few steps reached the suburbs, alighting on 
a diminutive wooden bridge, which spans 
the Neder, a stream that guides the foot-pas- 
senger to Salisbury. It commanded a level 
view over deep green meadow patches to 
Salisbury Cathedral, pointing high in the air 
with surpassing beauty. But the church 
was not visible. On turning again it ap- 
peared, immediately beyond, a little pinched, 
old-fashioned stone buildinor, the noisv bell 
ringing, and old people crowding the porch. 
10 



110 A CONDENSED CLEEK. 

The edifice stands at a triangular corner of 
the road, fenced off from the foot-path by 
gray, sunken tomb-stones. There was no 
spire, but a short, ventilated kind of chimney, 
out of which the bell twanged its coarse 
tones wdth a cracked, nasal utterance. With- 
in, the appearance was not less curious. 
It was the most diminutive of all parish 
churches. The preacher's sounding board 
projected from the very eaves of the spring- 
ing roof, and left no space below for the tip- 
toe eloquence common with many energetic 
divines. The clerk, condensed beneath in 
the smallest com]3ass, seemed to bolster both 
reading-desk and pulpit. The congregation 
may have numbered fifty persons ; the 
younger portion of the villagers were, doubt- 
less, withdrawn to the more imposing scenery 
of the cathedral. The clergyman wore the 
Oxford hood, and preached a practical, plain 
sermon worthy of Herbert himself At the 
time of singing the psalm and hymn there 



TUENING TO THE EAST. Ill 

was, instead, a decent pause for several 
minutes. At the Creed, all turned to the east 
and bowed.* The children of the parish 
were gathered about the chancel, and after 
the service, were directly questioned on 
the Catechism — an institution that Herbert 
in his ' Countrj Parson' lays much stress 
upon."f 

It was the good fortune of the present 
writer to visit Bemerton on a pleasant morn- 
ing of July, 1848. It was the crowning 
pleasure of a day crowded with enjoyment. 
I rose at an early hour to accomplish betimes 
the long ride to Stonehenge. On my return 
I diverged from my route to visit the 
localities made interesting to me by their 
connection with the career of Geor2:e Iler- 



■'■^ The reverential and beautifully significant custom of 
facing the East during the recital of the Creed is observed 
in all the cathedrals and many of the parish, churches of 
England. 

fArcturus. Vol. I., p. 268. 



112 WILTON HALL. 

bert, as well as their own intrinsic attrac- 
tions. I visited Wilton Hall, to wliicli the 
reader has been already introduced. Great 
changes have been made in the edifice ; but it 
is still in the possession of the Herberts. The 
ancient courteous kindness has descended 
with the ancient domain to the present own- 
ers. The family being at home at the time of 
my visit, the house was not, as at other sea- 
sons, open to the curious gaze of the tourist ; 
but an exception was made in favor of the 
remote and honored birtliplace of the trav- 
eller, and I was permitted to examine at will 
the pictures and other treasures of art gath- 
ered under the ancestral roof by the success- 
ive generations of tasteful occujDants. One 
of the apartments contained, as I fancied, a 
mute evidence of the courtesy of which I 
have spoken. A work-basket, with its house- 
' -ifely appurtenances, and a piece of needle- 
work, with the bright little implement of 
female industry arrested in mid career, 



WILTON CHUECH. 113 

soemed to indicate that a lady had hastily 
vacated her own parlor to afford an un- 
known stranger the opportunity of studying 
in unembarrassed ease the matchless paint- 
ings which clothed its walls. 

A twin wonder with Wilton Hall is the 
new church, erected from the unaided re- 
sources of his private fortune by a member 
of this noble family, Mr. Sidney Herbert, 
who combines in his name the memory of 
two of the most distinguished among his 
honored ancestors. The edifice is in the 
early Italian style, with round arches and a 
square, lofty campanile or tower connected 
with the church by a short covered passage. 
It is enriched with mosaics from Rome, 
choice foreign and native marbles ; with 
w^alls and windows brilliant with gilding and 
color, formmg a combination of grandeur 
and beauty almost unsurpassed even in 
richly-stored England. It seemed an em- 
bodiment of the poetical "Temple" of 



114 A GLIMPSE. 

George Herbert, to which we shall soon in- 
troduce our readers. 

A short ride brought me to the turn in the 
road within whose protecting elbow stands 
the little chapel of Herbert. My brother's 
brief description has given the reader, in 
sufficient detail, the simple features of the 
edifice. There was no one at hand to unlock 
the door; the exigencies of my journey per- 
mitted but a brief delay, and I had to cqij^ 
tent myself with a glimpse through the small 
windows placed one on each side of the 
edifice. The entrance, as usual in English 
parish churches, is through a porch. I could 
see nothing within but plain walls and wood- 
work ; but these, in their bare simplicity, 
were clothed with beauty from the memories 
which hung about them. 

The church has been much altered since 
Herbert's day. Two decorated Gothic win- 
dows, dating from about the commencement 
of the fourteenth century, on the south and 



CHURCH AND PARSONAGE. 115 

west sides, still remain. The east window is 
modern. Tlie walls have been repaired with 
brick work. The bell in the little turret is 
of the fourteenth century, and twenty-four 
inches in diameter. The font is also ancient. 
The sittings are modern, and of " unpainted 
deal."^ 

The parsonage is only forty feet (the width 
of the road in Mr. Herbert's time) from the 
church. The parts rebuilt by Herbert can still 
be traced ; but his inscription has disappeared. 
A grass plot on the south side slopes down 
to the river, and commands a fine view of 
Salisbury Cathedral in the distance. A fig- 
tree at the end of the house and a medlar in 
the garden, are said to have been planted by 
Mr. Herbert.f 

» Notes and Queries, II., 414. f lb., II., 460. 



CHAPTEE X. 

ME. HEEBEET's companions AT CAMBEIDGE " TIIB 

PEAEL" DAILY PEATEES AT BEMEETON — " ME. HEE- 

BEET's saint's bell" CHUECn MUSIO — WAYSIDE 

TEACHINGS CATECHISING THE " POOE MAN WITH A 

POOEEE HOESE" "music AT MIDNIGHT" — ME. HEE- 

BEET'S EEVEEENCE and LOVE OF THE BIBLE. 



M 



E. HEEBEET'S removal to Bemerton 
severed his connection with Cambridge. 
The separation must have been painful ; the 
sacrifice felt. He gave up the great libraries 
dear to an inquiring student, and a society 
of living men equal in attractiveness to these 
silent companions of his bookish hours. 
Milton and Jeremy Taylor were inmates of 
its classic halls, fair yonths, already giving 
bright promise of their future glory. Thomas 
Fuller was commencing his career as a great 



COLLEGE EKIENDS. 117 

scholar, and enlivening his fellows by his 
rare wit. Herrick, the song writer, Giles 
and his brother Pliineas Fletcher, both to be 
afterwards known as sacred poets, were 
among his contemporaries, and not improb- 
ably his friends.* John Cotton, Thomas 
Hooker, and several others, men of worth 
and intellect, -who were, a few years later, to 
take a prominent part in the history of our 
country, and give to our first college the 
revered name of their beloved Alma Mater, 
were also there, receiving the kindly culture 
of the Church, in w^hose doctrine and fellow- 
ship, but for the unwise rigor of men in 
power, they would probably have continued 
to their lives' end. 

In one of his choicest productions, written 
probably about this period, our poet has 
alluded to these past experiences of his 
life : 

^ Willmott's Lives of the Sacred Poets. 



118 THE PEARL. 

THE PEAEL. 
Matt. xiii. 
I know the ways of learning ; both the head 
And pipes that feed the press, and make it run ; 
What reason hath from nature borrowed, 
Or of itself, like a good housewife, spun 
In laws and policy ; what the stars conspire, 
What willing nature speaks, what forced by fire ; 
Both the old discoveries and the new found seas,* 
The stock and surplus, cause, and history ; 
All these stand open, or I have the keys : 
Yet I love thee. 

I know the ways of honor, what maintains 
The quick returns of courtesy and wit : 
In view of favours whetherf party gains. 
When glory swells the heart and mouldeth it 
To all expressions both of hand and eye, 
Which on the world a true-love knot may tie, 
And bear the bundle, wheresoe'er it goes : 
How many drams of spirit there must be 
To sell my life unto my friends or foes : 

Yet I love thee. 

I know the ways of pleasure, the sweet strains. 
The lullings and the relishes of it ; 
The propositions of hot blood and brains ; 
What mirth and music mean ; what love and wit 

^' One of many allusions to the American discoveries, 
which were regarded by all the great men of the time as 
one of the cliief glories of their age. 

f Whichever. 



TEXTS FKOM THE GOSPELS. 119 

Have done these twenty hundred years and more : 
I know the projects of unbridled store : 
My stuff is flesh, not brass ; my senses live, 
And grumble oft, that they have more in me 
Than he that curbs them, being but one to five : 
Yet I love thee. 

I know all these, and have them in my hand : 
Therefore not sealed, but with open eyes, 
I fly to thee, and fully understand 
Both the main sale, and the commodities ; 
And at what rate and price I have thy love ; 
With all the circumstances that may move : 
Yet through the labyrinths, not my groveling wit, 
But thy silk-twist let down from Heaven to me, 
Did both conduct and teach me, how by it, 
To climb to thee. 

Mr. Herbert devoted himself with un- 
tiring energy to the duties of his calling. 
The text of his weekly sermon — the Cate- 
chism taking the place of a discourse in 
the afternoon service — was always selected 
from the Gospel for the day. He took 
especial pains to explain to his hearers the 
significancy of the various portions of the 
Church services, and of the different seasons 
of the ritual year. His instructions are set 



120 

forth by Walton in a beautiful passage, justly 
regarded as one of the finest expositions of 
the Church service, and the manner in which 

As through a zodiac, moves the ritual year. 

His chapel was opened every day for 
morning and evening prayer " at the ca- 
nonical hours of ten and four." His own 
family were constant in their attendance, 
and their good example was generally fol- 
lowed by the parishioners. Some of the 
humble farm laborers, we are told, " did so 
love and reverence Mr. Herbert that they 
would let their plough rest when Mr. Her- 
bert's Saint's bell rung to prayers, that they 
might also offer their devotions to God with 
him ; and w^ould then return back to their 
plough. And his most holy life was such 
that it begot such reverence to God and to 
him, that they thought themselves the happier 
when they carried Mr. Herbert's blessing 
back with them to their labour." His brother 
Edward writes to the same effect : " His life 



PKAYEK AND CATHEDRAL MUSIC. 121 

was most holy and exemj^laiy, in so much 
that about Salisbury, where he lived bene- 
ficed for many years, he was little less than 
sainted." 

The recreations of a good man take their 
tone from his duties, and thus advance, 
rather than retard, as is often the case with 
the selfish pleasures of the world, his pro- 
gress in holiness. Mr. Herbert delighted in 
the angelic gratification of music. " H. Al- 
len, of Dauntsey, who was well acquainted 
with him," told Aubrey, " that he had a very 
good hand on the lute, and that he sett his 
own ly ricks or sacred poems." He usually 
walked twice in every week to Salisbury to 
join in the choral service of the Cathedral, 
and was wont to say on his return, ''That his 
time spent in prayer and cathedral music 
elevated his soul, and was his heaven upon 
earth." He would frequently, before return- 
ing from Salisbury, " sing and play his part 
at an appointed private music meeting ;" re- 
11 



122 SERMON HEAKEES AND FISH. 

marking often that " Religion does not ban- 
ish mirth, but only moderates and sets rules 
to it." 

His ordinary walks even seem, like all the 
actions of his life, to have been the means 
of good to others. It was his courteous 
practice to enter into conversation with those 
he met by the way. On one occasion we 
find him overtaking a gentleman belonging 
to Salisbury, and engaging in rehgious con- 
versation, with the happy remark, " that 
there be some sermon-hearers that be like 
those fishes that always live in salt water, 
and yet are always fresh." Mr. Herbert, we 
are told, " asked him some needful questions, 
and having received his answer, gave him 
such rules for the trial of his sincerity, and 
for a practical piety, and in so loving and 
meek a manner that the gentleman did so 
fall in love with him and his discourse, that 
he would often contrive to meet him in his 
walk to Salisbury or to attend him back to 



THE DUTY OF CATECHISING. 123 

Bemerton, and still mentions the name of 
Mr. George Herbert with veneration, and 
still praiseth God for the occasion of knowing 
him." 

At another time we find him falling in 
with a brother clergyman, and in the course 
of their conversation on " the decay of piety 
and too general contempt of the clergy," 
urging that " one cure for these distempers 
would be for the clergy themselves to keep 
the Ember weeks strictly, and beg of their 
parishioners to join with them in fasting and 
prayers for a more religious clergy. 

" And another cure," he continues, " would 
be for themselves to restore the great and 
neglected duty of catechising, on which the 
salvation of so many of the poor and igno- 
rant lay-people does depend ; but principally 
that the clergy themselves would be sure to 
live unblamably." 

The third of these pleasant Avayside in- 
cidents is so delightfully related by Wal* 



124 DISRESPECT TO THE CLOTH. 

ton, that sve must borrow Lis entire nar- 
rative : 

" In another walk to Salisbury he saw a 
poor man with a poorer horse, that was fallen 
under his load ; they were both in distress, 
and needed present help, which Mr. Herbert 
perceiving, put off his canonical coat, and 
helped the poor man to unload, and after to 
load his horse. The poor man blessed him 
for it, and he blessed the poor man ; and was 
so like the good Samaritan, that he gave him 
money to refresh both himself and his horse ; 
and told him, ' that if he loved himself he 
should be merciful to his beast.' Thus he 
left the poor man, and at his coming to his 
musical friends at Salisbury, they began to 
wonder that Mr. George Herbert, who used 
to be so trim and clean, came into that com- 
pany so soiled and discomposed ; but he told 
them the occasion. And wdien one of the 
company told him ' he had disparaged him- 
self by so dirty an employment,' his answer 



MUSIC AT MIDNIGHT. 125 

was * that the thought of what he had done 
would ]3rove music to him at midnight ; and 
that the omission of it woukl have upbraided 
and made discord in his conscience, whenso- 
ever he should pass by that p)lace. For if I 
be bound to pray for all that be in distress, I 
am sure that I am bound, so far as it is in 
my power, to practise what I pray for. And 
though I do not wish for the like occasion 
every day, yet let me tell you, I would not 
willingly pass one day of my life without 
comforting a sad soul, or showing mercy ; 
and I praise God for this occasion. And 
now let us tune our instruments.' " 

An interesting addition to our biographical 
knowledge of Mr. Herbert is given us by his 
friend Ferrar. "To testify," he says, "his 
independency uj)on all others, and to quicken 
his diligence in this kind [his Christian call- 
ing], he used, in his ordinary speech, when he 
made mention of the blessed name of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ, to add, My Master. 
11^ 



126 LOVE OF THE BIBLE. 

" J^ext God, he loved that which God hhn- 
self hath magnified above all things — that is, 
his "Word : so, as he hath been heard to make 
solemn protestation, that he would not part 
"with one leaf thereof for the whole world, if 
it were offered him in exchange."^ 

^ Preface to The Temple. 



CHAPTEE XL 

THE COUXTEY PARSON " SHAYIXGS OF GOLd" THE 

parson's apparel and nOITSEKEEPING " THE 

WALLS NOT idle" — THE PARSON's SUNDAY WORK — 
WASTING OF DISEASE. 

IT was during this period that Mr. Herbert 
wrote his admirable little prose work, " A 
Priest to the Temple ; or, the Country Par- 
son, his Character and Pule of Holy Life." 
It was written solely with a view to his own 
improvement in the duties of his sacred call- 
ing. " I have resolved," he says in the brief 
preliminary address of " The Author to the 
Peader," '' to set down the form and character 
of a true pastor, that I may have a mark to 
aim at ; which also I will set as high as I 
can, since he shoots higher that threatens the 



128 SHAVINGS OF GOLD. 

moon, than he that aims at a tree.* ]S'ot 
that I thmk that if a man do not all which 
is here expressed, he presently sins and dis- 
pleases God ; bnt that it is a good strife to 
go as far as we can in pleasing of him who 
hath done so much for ns." 

This little volume was not published until 
1652. Fuller, writing a little before this date 
remarks, in his Church History, "It much 
contenteth me that I am certainly informed 
that the posthume remains (shavings of gold 
are carefully to be kept) of that not less pious 
than witty writer, are shortly to be put forth 
into print." The " Country Parson" has 
been several times " put forth into print" 
within the present century, and can be ob- 
tained at a moderate price. It is a book for 

«^* His Church Porch in "The Temple" contains the 
same fancy : 

" Pitch thy behaviour low, thy projects high ; 
So shalt thou humble and magnanimous be : 
Sink not in spirit : who aimeth at the sky 
Shoots higher much than he that means a tree, ' ' 



APPAKEL AND FUllNITURE. 129 

the laity as well as the clergy, for most if not 
all of the incidents of parochial life have a 
common interest and impose a common ob- 
ligation. 

The volume furnishes many valuable hints 
to the biographer ; for Herbert has drawn 
many of the traits of his '' Country Parson" 
from his own tastes. The parson's apparel 
is "plain, but reverend and clean, without 
spots, or dust, or smell; the purity of his 
mind breaking out, and dilating itself even 
to his body, clothes, and habitation."^ " The 
furniture of his house is very plain, but 
clean, whole, and sweet — as sweet as his 
garden can make ; for he hath no money for 
such things, charity being his only perfume, 
which deserves cost when he can spare it. 
His fare is plain and common, but whole- 



■•5 This was a favorite idea, which he has also expressed 
among the counsels of "The Church Porch :" 

" Let thy mind's sweetness have his operation 
Upon thy body, clothes, and habitation," 



130 INSTRUCTION. 

some ; what he hath is little, but very good. 
It consisteth most of mutton, beef, and veal ; 
if he adds anything for a great day or a 
stranger, his garden or orchard supplies it, 
or his barn and yard. He goes no further 
for any entertainment, lest he go into the 
world, esteeming it absurd that he should 
exceed who teacheth others temperance." 

" Those (of his servants) that can read are 
allowed times for it, and those that cannot 
are taught ; for all in his house are either 
teachers, or learners, or both, so that his 
family is a school of religion, and they all 
account, that to teach the ignorant is the 
greatest alms. Even the walls are not idle ; 
but something is written or painted there, 
which may excite the reader to a thought of 
piety; especially the 101st Psalm, which is 
expressed in a fair table as being the rule of 
a family." 

This idea of turning walls to a good in- 
structive account was a favorite with him. 



TEXTS UrON WALLS. 131 

We have already spoken of his legacy of ad- 
vice to his successor in the Parsonage. His 
church was similarly ornamented. " In the 
chancel," says Aubrey, " are many apt sen- 
tences of the Scripture. At his wife's seat, 
' My life is hid with Christ in God.' (Coloss. 
iii. 3.) Above, in a little window blinded, 
within a veil, 'Thou art my hiding-place.'" 
The first-named passage has also furnished a 
text for one of his poems. 

"The Country Parson, as soon as he 
awakes on Sunday morning, presently falls 
to work, and seems to himself so as a market- 
man is, when the market-day comes, or a 
shop-keeper, when customers use to come in. 
His thoughts are full of making the best of 
the day, and contriving it to his best gains. 
To this end, besides his ordinary prayers, he 
makes a peculiar one for a blessing on the 
exercises of the day. This done, he sets him- 
self to the consideration of the duties of the 
day, and if there be any extraordinary addi- 



132 SUNDAY EMrLOYMENT. 

tioii to the customary exercises, either from 
the time of the year, or from the state, or 
from God, by a child born or dead, or any 
other accident, he contrives how, and in 
what manner, to induce it to the best ad- 
vantage. Afterwards, when the hour calls, 
with his family attending him, he goes to 
church, at his first entrance humbly adoring 
and worshipping the invisible majesty and 
presence of Almighty God, and blessing the 
people either openly or to himself. Then 
having read divine service twice fully, and 
preached in the morning and catechized in 
the afternoon, he thinks he hath, in some 
measure, according to poor and frail man, 
discharged the public duties of the congrega- 
tion. The rest of the day he spends either 
in reconciling neighbours that are at variance, 
or in visitino; the sick, or in exhortations to 
some of his flock by themselves, whom his 
sermons cannot, or do not, reach. And 
every one is more awaked when we come 



SUNDAY EVENINGS. 133 

and say : ' Tlioii art the man.' This way he 
finds exceeding useful and winning ; and 
these exhortations he calls his privy purse, 
even as princes have theirs, besides their 
public disbursements. At night he thinks it 
a very fit time, both suitable to the joy of 
the day, and without hindrance to public 
duties, either to entertain some of his neigh- 
bours, or to be entertained of them, where 
he takes occasion to discourse of such things 
as are both profitable and pleasant, and to 
raise up their minds to apprehend God's 
good blessing to our Church and State ; that 
order is kept in the one and peace in the 
other, without disturbance or interruption of 
public divine offices. As he opened the day 
with prayer, so he closeth it, humbly beseech- 
ing the Almighty to pardon and accept our 
poor services, and to improve them, that we 
may grow therein, and that our feet may be 
like hinds' feet, ever climbing up higher and 
higher unto him." 

12 



134 ' DECAY. 

Did our plan permit, we might, in this 
manner, follow the Country Parson through 
his weekly round of duties, well assured that 
in doing so we should still be in the com- 
pany of Mr. George Herbert, as we shall 
never find him far behind his own or any 
other's ideal of a Christian walk and con- 
versation. We have quoted enough, we 
hope, to make the reader wish lor more^ and 
he will, we trust, not be satisfied until he 
has sought, found, and read Mr. Herbert's 
little book from beginning to end. 

Unfortunately for the world, this life of 
goodness was to be of short duration. Con- 
sumptive symptoms again appeared. Mr. 
Herbert became so weak as to be unable to 
read prayers twice a day without painful 
effort. His wife perceiving that he was thus 
exhausting his little strength, told him that 
it " wasted his spirits and weakened him." 
He confessed that this was so ; but added, 
" his life could not be better spent than in 



ME. BOSTOCK. 135 

the service of his Master, Jesus, who had 
done aud suffered so much for him. But," 
said he, " I will not be wilful ; for, though 
my spirit be willing, yet I find my flesh is 
weak ; and therefore Mr. Bostock shall be 
appointed to read prayers for me to-morrow, 
and I will be now only a hearer of them, till 
this mortal shall put on immortality." Mr. 
Bostock was an old friend of Mr. Herbert's, 
and his curate or assistant at Fulston parish 
church, to which Bemerton was a chapel. 
He undertook the assigned duty on the fol- 
lowing day, and continued it until Mr. Her- 
bert's decease. 



CHAPTEK Xn. 



ME. NICHOLAS FEKEAE THE VIEGINIA COMPANY LITTLE 

GIDDEN DEVOTIONAL EXEECISES THE TABLET 

"abused as papists and as PUEITANS" JOHN VAL- 

DESSO ME. FEEEAe's PEAYEE^ — ME. DFNCON's YISIT 

" WHAT PEAYEES ?" MANUSOEIPT OF THE TEMPLE. 

MR. HERBEET had maintained for many 
years a warm friendship with an as- 
sociate of his University days, Mr. Nicholas 
Ferrar.^ 



Cf I i 'piiere is another thing (some will call it a paradox) 
which I learned from him (and Mr. Ferrar) in the 
managery of their most cordial and Christian friendship. 
That this may be maintained in vigour and height with- 
out the ceremonies of visits and compliments ; yea, with- 
out any trade of secular courtesies, merely in order to 
spiritual edification of one another in loVe. I know they 
loved each other most entirely, and their very souls 
cleaved together most intimately, and drove a large 
stock of Christian intelligence together long before their 
deaths ; yet saw they not each other in many years, I 
think, scarce ever, but as members of one University, in 
their whole lives." — OZey's Life of Herbert. 



THE VIRGINIA COMPANY. 137 

Mr. Ferrar, a gentleman of good family 
and fortune, was born on the twenty-second 
of N"ovember, 1592. He displayed, from 
his earliest years, great mental activity and 
deep devotional feeling. After completing 
his studies at Cambridge he passed some years 
in extensive foreign travel. On his return 
he took an active part in the management of 
the Virginia Company, conducting the corre- 
spondence with the colony, and defending 
the association from the attacks of its ene- 
mies until its arbitrary and imjust dissolu- 
tion, through the influence of the Spanish 
ambassador, by the King. He now resolved 
to withdraw from public affairs to the life of 
retirement which he had long desired. 

Mr. Ferrar pm-chased land yielding an in- 
come of from four to five hundred pounds a 
year, at Little Gidden, about eighteen miles 
from Cambridge, and from four to six from 
Huntingdon. His house was close to the 
parish church. Having taken Deacon's 
12* 



138 

orders, he resolved to devote tlie remainder 
of Ms life to religious duties. His execution 
of this resolve was somewhat peculiar. 

His family numbered about thirty persons, 
a portion of whom were in no way related to 
him. The household formed a sort of college 
or brotherhood. The daily routine estab- 
lished about the year 1630 was as follows: 
At the hours of ten and four Mr. Ferrar read 
prayers in the parish church, which he had 
repaired and decorated at his own expense. 
He also conducted morning service at six, in 
the church or the oratory of his house, re- 
maining often for several hours after the con- 
clusion to sing hymns and anthems with 
members of his family. They assembled 
during the day for prayer and the reading 
of the Psalms and other portions of the 
Bible, and gathered together at night to read 
the Psalms wliicli had been omitted during 
the day. When those in attendance became 
exhausted, the bell was rung " sometimes be- 



GEDDEN HALL. 139 

fore and sometimes after midniglit," and their 
places supplied by others who were in their 
turn relieved, the service being continued 
until morning, and the entire Psalter in this 
manner said or sung once in every twenty- 
four hours. 

These remarkable devotional exercises, ac- 
companied by an abstemious mode of life 
and liberal charities to the poor, became 
celebrated, and Gidden Hall was often 
visited by members of the clergy and others, 
who would pass a week or more with Mr. 
Ferrar, joining in the routine of the house. 
During the winter the exercises of the night 
were conducted in a parlor, warmed and ar- 
ranged for the purjDose. This, in common 
with the other apartments of the house, was 
decorated with moral sentences and passages 
from Scripture on the walls. A tablet of 
brass was, at the suggestion of Mr. Herbert, 
displayed in this room, with the following 
significant inscription, approved by him : 



140 



THE TABLET. 



b g g g 

S g H g 

o w ei 

s a 5 

H iz; o 5 ;^ 

P5 o o < a 



a 



MB S W 

^ 2 w " 



a 



K PM ^ P <i 



o o o3 

n p^ H (^ 
£ H o 



1^ 



W o S S S o 




PAPISTS AND PURITANS. 141 

Mr. Herbert's approval of this inscription, 
interesting from its dignified simplicity, 
furnishes a good example of his fair and 
candid mode of dealing in matters open to 
controversy. The erection of this tablet 
gave rise, like the other proceedings of the 
family, to much comment. They were op- 
posed, as is often the case, by persons of the 
most opposite opinions. "By some," says 
the biographer, '^ they were abnsed as Pa- 
pists ; by others, as Puritans."^ 

An engraved portrait from a contemporary 
picture of Mr. Ferrar now lies before ns. It 
represents a singularly prepossessing counte- 
nance. The brow is amj)le, the features 
regular, the hair, dark and abundant, combed 
back from the forehead ; the eye singularly 
large and mild. The impression conveyed 
by th-Q face is that of one of those quiet en- 
thusiasts who pursue their course apart 

* Peckard's Life of Ferrar. 



142 HOLY FRIENDSHIP. 

from the main current of human affairs, but 
with undeviating aim and a strength of pur- 
pose that current's wildest surge cannot de- 
flect a hair's breadth. The engraved seems 
an endorsement of the printed page, and, like 
many a fine portrait, furnishes one of the 
most trustworthy of our biographical author- 
ities. 

Mr. Ferrar died on the second of De- 
cember, 163Y. The family remained to- 
gether, until dispersed by the parliamentary 
party during the civil wars, 

"Mr. Ferrar's and Mr. Herbert's devout 
lives were both so noted," says Walton, " that 
the general report of their sanctity gave 
them occasion to renew that slight acquaint- 
ance which was begun at their being con- 
temporaries in Cambridge ; and this new holy 
friendship was long maintained without any 
interview, but only by loving and endearing 
letters." As " one testimony of their friend- 
ship and pious designs," he mentions, that 



JOHN VALDESSO. 143 

Mr. Ferrar submitted to Mr. Herbert a trans- 
lation which he had made of "The Con- 
siderations of John Yaldesso," a work he had 
met with on his travels. Yaldesso was a 
favorite courtier of the Emperor Charles the 
Fifth. After following his sovereign through 
his many long wars, he retired with him 
from the world to the monastery of Yuste, 
where he wrote the work mentioned above, 
and a translation of all St. Paul's Epistles, 
from the original into Spanish. Mr. Herbert 
returned the manuscript with many valuable 
marginal notes, and a letter, both pf which 
were printed with the volume. 

" On Friday," Mr. Ferrar writes, the date 
not being given, " Mr. Mapletoft brought us 
word that Mr. Herbert was said to b« past 
hope of recovery, which was very giievous 
news to us, and so much the more so, being 
altogether unexpected. "We presently there- 
fore made our public supplication for his 
health in the words and manner following :" 



144 PEAYER FOE ME. HERBEET. 

We extract a portion of tlie prayer, as an 
evidence of tlie respect and affection with 
wliicli Mr. Herbert was regarded : 

" O most miglity God, and merciful 
Father, we most humbly beseech thee, if it 
be thy good pleasure, to continue to us that 
singular benefit which thou hast given ns in 
the friendship of thy servant, our dear 
brother, who now lieth on the bed of sick- 
ness. Let him abide with ns yet awhile, for 
the furtherance of our faith. We have 
indeed deserved by our ingratitude, not 
only the loss of him, but whatever other 
opportunities thou hast given ns for the at- 
tainment of our salvation. ^ '^ "^^ * * 
Lord, thou hast willed that our delights 
should be in the saints on earth, and in such 
as excel in virtue ; how then should we not 
be afflicted, and mourn when thou takest 
them away from us ! Thou hast made him 
a great help, and furtherance of the best 
things amongst us, how then can we but 



145 

esteem the loss of him a chastisement from 
thy displeasm-e ! O Lord, we beseech thee, 
that it may not be so ; we beseech thee, if it 
be thy good pleasure, restore unto us our 
dear brother, by restoring to him his health ; 
so will we praise and magnify thy name and 
mercy with a song of thanksgiving. Hear 
us, O Lord, for thy dear Son's sake, Jesus 
Christ our Saviour. Amen." 

Mr. Ferrar sent Mr. Edward Duncon to 
visit Mr. Herbert, and bring back a full 
account of his condition. On Mr. Duncon's 
entrance, Mr. Herbert, who was lying down 
much exhausted, raised himself, and in- 
quired respecting Mr. Ferrar's health. His 
solicitude satisfied, after some conversation 
about the holy life of his friend, he said to 
Mr. Duncon, " Sir, I see by your habit that 
you are a priest, and I desire you to pray 
with me." Mr. Duncon, expressing his 
willingness, asked, what prayers ? " O sir," 
was the reply, '' the prayers of my mother, 
13 



146 MAJESTY AND HUMILITY RECONCILED. 

the Cliurch of England, no other prayers are 
equal to them !^ but at this same time I beg 
of you to pray only the Litany, for I am 
weak and faint." Mr. Duncon complied, 
and remained Mr. Herbert's guest for the 
night, leaving him on the morrow with a 
promise to return within five days. This 
was about a month before Mr. Herbert's 
death. Mr. Duncon, describing the inter- 
view to Walton, told him, "that at his first 
view of Mr. Herbert, he saw majesty and 
humility so reconciled in his looks and be- 
haviour as begot in him an awful reverence 
for his person. He added, that his discourse 



■^•' "At once both commending them, and his soul to God 
in them, immediately before his dissolution, as some 
martyrs did, Mr. HuUier by name, vicar of Babram, 
burnt to death in Cambridge, who, having the common 
prayer-book in his hand instead of a censer, and using 
the prayers as incense, offered himself up as a whole 
burnt sacrifice to God ; with whom the very book itself 
suffered martyrdom, when fallen out of his consumed 
hands, it was by the executioners thrown into the fire and 
burnt as an heretical book." — Oley's Life of Herbert. 



HOPE AND PATIENCE. 147 

was SO pious and his motions so gentle and 
meek, that, after almost forty years, yet they 
remain still fresh in his memory." 

On the fifth day Mr. Dmicon retm-ned. 
He found Mr. Herbert much weaker than 
before, so that he could converse for a short 
time only. As his guest rose to depart, Mr. 
Herbert said, " Sir, I pray give my brother 
Ferrar an account of the decaying condition 
of my body, and tell him I beg him to con- 
tinue his daily prayers for me. And let him 
know that I have considered that God only is 
what he would he; and that I am, by his 
grace, become now so like him, as to be 
pleased with what pleaseth him; and tell 
him, that I do not repine, but am pleased 
with my want of health; and tell him my 
heart is fixed on that place where true joy is 
only to be found ; and tliat I long to be 
there, and do wait for my appointed change 
with hope and patience. Having said this," 
continued Walton, " he did, with so sweet a 



a -rwTTi TXi-nTiTriTk -or\r\x> c/-\ttt c " 



148 A GIFT TO " DEJECTED, POOR SOULS 

humility as seemed to exalt him, bow down 
to Mr. Dimcon, and with a thoughtful and 
contented look say to him, "Sir, I pray 
deliver this little book to my dear brother 
Ferrar, and tell him he shall find in it a 
picture of the many spiritual conflicts that 
have passed betwixt God and my soul, before 
I could subject mine to the will of Jesus, my 
Master ; in wiiose service I have now found 
perfect freedom ; desire him to read it ; and 
then, if he can think it may turn to the ad- 
vantage of any dejected, poor soul, let it be 
made public ; if not, let him burn it, for I 
and it are less than the least of God's mer- 
cies." The work thus humbly spoken of 
-was "The Temple, or Sacred J^oems and 
Private Ejaculations," destined not only to 
comfort thousands of "dejected, poor souls," 
but to place the author high among the 
glorious company of the English poets, and 
to endear him for all time to the hearts of 
all good men. 



CHAPTEK XIII. 



ME. WOODNOT — THE PAST AND THE FUTUEE — ME. HEE- 

beet's LAST SUNDAY " CHUECH MUSIc" GOOD 

WOEKS THE DEATH-BED ME. HEEBEET's BUEIAL 

MES. HEEBEET's "WIDOWHOOD LOSS OF ME. HEEBEET's 

MANTJSCEIPTS. 



M 



K. DUE'COE' was succeeded a day or 
two after in his solemn watch at Mr. 
Herbert's bedside, by the poet's old friend, 
Mr. "Woodnot, who remained until all was 
over. During this brief period of three 
weeks, Mr. Herbert was often visited and 
prayed with by the Bishop and Prebendaries 
of Salisbury and the rest of the neighboring 
clergy. His wife and his three nieces, with 
Mr. Woodnot, were constant in their atten- 
dance. He would often speak to them to 
this effect : " I now look back upon the plea- 
13* 



150 PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 

sures of my life past, and see the content I 
have taken in beauty, in wit, and music, and 
pleasant conversation, are now all past by me 
like a dream, or as a shadow that retm-ns not, 
and are now all become dead to me, or I to 
them ; and I see that, as my father and gen- 
eration hath done before me, so I shall now 
suddenly (with Job) make my hed also in the 
dark; and I praise God I am prepared for 
it ; and I praise Him that I am not to learn 
patience, now I stand in such need of it ; and 
that I have practised mortification and endea- 
vored to die daily, that I might not die eter- 
nally ; and my hope is, that I shall shortly 
leave this valley of tears, and be free from 
all fevers and pain, and, which will be a more 
happy condition, I shall be free from sin 
and all the temptations and anxieties that at- 
tend it; and this being past, I shall dwell 
in the l!^ew Jerusalem — dwell there with 
men made perfect — dwell where these eyes 
shall see my Master and Saviour Jesus, and 



THE DAY MOST CALM, MOST BKIGHT. 151 

with Him see my dear motlier, and all my 
relations and friends. But I must die or not 
come to that happy place, and this is my con- 
tent, that I am going daily toward it, and 
that every day which I have lived hath taken 
a part of my appointed time from me, and 
that I shall live the less time, for having lived 
this and the day past." 

On the Sunday before his death, he rose 
suddenly from his couch, and calling for one 
of his musical instruments tuned it, and sang 
to its accompaniment the fifth stanza of his 
poem on Sunday. As this is one of the 
finest of his productions, and can nowhere be 
more fitly cited than here, we give the entire 
composition : 

SUNDAY. 

day most calm, most bright, 
The fruit of this, the next world's bud, 
The indorsement of supreme delight, 
Writ by a friend, and with his blood ; 
The couch of time ; care's balm and bay ; 
The week were dark, but for thy light ; 

Thy torch doth shoAV the way. 



152 SILN^DAT. 

The other days and thou 
Make up one man ; whose face thou art, 
Knoclcing at Heaven with thy brow : 
The working days are the back part ; 
The burden of the week lies there, 
Making the whole to stoop and bow, 

Till thy release appear. 

Man had straightforward gone 
To endless death ; but thou dost pull 
And turn us round to look on one, 
Whom, if we were not very dull, 
We could not choose but look on still ; 
Since there is no place so alone 

The which he doth not fill, 

Sundays the pillars are, 
On which Heaven's palace arched lies : 
The other days fill up the spare 
And hollow room with vanities. 
They are the fruitful beds and borders 
In God's rich garden ; that is bare 

Which parts their ranks and orders. 

The Sundays of man's life, 
Thredded together on time's string, 
Make bracelets to adorn the wife 
Of the eternal glorious King, 
On Sunday Heaven's gate stands ope ; 
Blessings are plentiful and rife, 

More plentiful than hope. 



FROM SEVEN TO SEVEN. 153 

This day my Saviour rose, 
And did enclose this light for his, 
That as each beast his manger knows, 
Man might not of his fodder miss. 
Christ hath took in this piece of ground, 
And made a garden there for those 

Who want herbs for their wound. 

The rest of our Creation 
Our great Redeemer did remove, 
With the same shake, which at his passion 
Did the earth and all things with it move. 
As Samson bore the doors away, 
Christ's hands, though nail'd, wrought our v,tivatic«i, 

And did unhinge that day. 

The brightness of that day 
We sullied by our foul offence : 
Wherefore that robe we cast away, 
Having a new at His expense, 
Whose drops of blood paid the full price, 
That was required to make us gay. 

And fit for Paradise. 

Thou art a day of mirth : 
And where the week days trail on ground, 
Thy flight is higher, as thy birth : 
Oh, let me take thee at the bound. 
Leaping with thee from seven to seven, 
Till that we both, being toss'd from earth, 

Fly hand in hand to Heaven ! 



154 SWEETEST OF SWEETS. 

The beautiful incideut just related, recalls 
another of Herbert's poems. In the rapt 
enjoyment of devotional melody he seems 
almost to anticipate the scene before us. 

CHURCH MUSIC. 

Sweetest of sweets, I thank you ; when displeasure 
Did through my body wound my mind, 

You took me thence, and in your house of pleasure, 
A dainty lodging me assigned. 

Now I in you without a body move, 

Eising and falling with your wings ; 
We both together sweetly live and love, 

Yet say sometimes, " God help poor kings." 

Comfort, I'll die ; for if you post from me, 

Sure I shall do so, and much more ; 
But if I travel in your company. 

You know the way to Heaven's door. 

On the day of his death he said to Mr. 
Woodnot: "My dear friend, I am sorry I 
have nothing to present to my merciful God 
but sin and misery ; but the first is pardoned, 
and a few hours will now put a period to the 
latter, for I shall suddenly go hence and be no 



THE LAST STKUGGLE. 155 

rebuilding of Leigliton cliurcli, and some of 
his otlier acts of charity. "They be good 
works," was the reply, " if they be sprinkled 
with the blood of Christ, and not otherwise." 
After this he became restless. As his wife 
and nieces kept their mournful watch at his 
bedside they perceived that he breathed 
faintly and with effort. A sudden agony 
fell upon him. His wife, in a paroxysm of 
grief, asked him how he felt. He replied, 
" that he had passed a conflict with his last 
enemy, and had overcome him by the merits 
of his Master Jesus." Looking up, he saw 
his wife and nieces weeping. He entreated 
them, " if they loved him, to withdraw into 
the nex,t room, and there pray, every one 
alone for him ; for nothing but their lament- 
ations could make his death uncomfortable." 
They "yielded him a sad obedience" and 
tearfully withdrew, leaving only Mr. Wood- 
not and Mr. Bostock with him. Pointing 
out a cabinet to the latter, he requested him 



156 DEATH. 

to take from it his will. Keceiving the docu- 
ment, he placed it in the hands of Mr. 
"Woodnot. " My old friend," he said, " I 
here deliver yon my last will, in which you 
will find that I have made you my sole exec- 
iitor, for the good of my wife and nieces ; 
and I desire you to show kindness to them, 
as they shall need it. I do not desire you to 
be just, for I know you will be so for your 
own sake ; but I charge you, by the religion 
of our friendship, to be careful of them." 
Having received Mr. Woodnot's assent, he 
said : " I am now ready to die ;" and after a 
space : " Lord, forsake me not, now my 
strength faileth me ; but grant me mercy for 
the merits of my Jesus. And now. Lord — 
Lord, receive my soul." 

" With these words, he breathed forth his 
divine soul, without any apparent disturb- 
ance, Mr. Woodnot and Mr. Bostock attend- 
ing his last breath, and closing his eyes." 

Mr. Herbert was buried on the third of 



THE BIJEIAL SERVICE. 157 

March, 1632, beneath the chancel of his 
church, the choristers of Salisbury, in com- 
pliance with his expressed wishes, attending 
and chaunting in the service for the burial 
of the dead. There is something beautiful 
in this request. It marks his love of music 
and his love to the Church. He asked for 
no funeral pomp, no eulogy, no monumental 
marble; but he did require that the noble 
service of our ritual should be given in all 
its beauty — ^that it might do its full work by 
impressing the living as well as honoring 
the dead. 

Mrs. Herbert remained a widow for six 
years. She then married Sir Kobert Cook, 
of Highnam, Gloucestershire, by whom she 
had a daughter. She died in 1663, having 
survived Sir Eobert fifteen years. She re- 
tained an affectionate reverence for Mr. 
Herbert to the last. She would often take 
occasion to mention his name, and say, "that 
name must live in her memory till she put 
14 



1§8 LOST MANUSCRIPTS. 

off mortality." Walton says, that she " had 
preserved many of Mr. Herbert's private 
writings, which she intended to make pub- 
lic, but they and Highnam House were burnt 
together, by the late rebels, and so lost to pos- 
terity." Another authority, John Aubrey, 
the gossiping antiquary, gives a different ac- 
count. He says that Mr. Herbert " writ a 
folio in Latin, which, because the parson of 
Hineham could not read it, his widowe (then 
wife to Sir Eobert Cook) condemned to the 
uses of good housewifry." "We wish, for 
Lady Cook's and the parson's sake, that the 
Btory were not as authentic as we fear it is. 



CHAPTEE XIY. 

COKNAEO ON TEMPERANCE — PEOYEEBS WALTON's DE- 

SCEIPTION OF THE TEMPLE CHAEACTEE OF THE WOEK 

THE "CHUECH POECH" " THE ALTAE" " SIN" 

"vIETUe" THE "bETTISH CHUECH" " PEACE." 

IN addition to tlie works we have already 
mentioned, Mr. Herbert translated Cor- 
naro's Treatise on Temperance, an excellent 
little volume, wliich is still frequently printed. 
It appeared at Cambridge, in 1634, in tlie same 
volume with a translation, by Mr. Xicbolas 
Ferrar, of tlie Hygiasticon ; or, The Right 
Course of Preserving Health, by Leonard 
Lessius, and is included, with several notes 
on Lessius' treatise, in the poet's " Eemains." 
He also formed a collection of Proverbs, 
published in 1640, with the title, " Jacula 
Prudentum 'y or, Outlandish Proverbs, Sen- 



160 A MAN HIS OWN PHYSIC. 

tences, etc., selected by Mr. George Herbert, 
late Orator of the University of Cambridge." 
Others were added in the second edition, 
1651. The whole are included in the "Ee- 
mains." The translations appear to have 
been popular, and to have passed through 
several editions. The contemporary poet, 
Richard Crashaw, has rendered a fine trib- 
ute to Lessius' labors. It is itself redolent 
with the beauty of hearty, vigorous health. 

IN mAiSE OP lessius' eule of health. 

«f c- -is tt '.■} « 

Hark hither, reader, would' st thou see 
Nature her own physician he ? 
Would' st see a man all his own wealth, 
His own physic, his own health ? 
A man whose sober soul can tell 
How to wear her garments well ? 

o o o a * » 

A happy soul, that all the way 

To heaven hath a summer's day ? 

Would' st see a man whose well- warmed blood 

Bathes him in a genuine flood ? 

A man whose tuned humours be 

A seat of rarest harmony ? 

Would' st sec blithe looks, fresh cheeks beguile 

Age ? Would' st see December smile ? 



FIRST EDITION OF THE TEMPLE. 161 

Would' st see a nest of roses grow 

In a bed of reverend snow ? 

Warm thought, free spirits, flattering 

Winter's self into a spring ? 

In sum, would' st see a man that can 

Live to be old and still a man ? 

Whose latest, and most leaden hours, 

Fall with soft wings, stuck with soft flow'rs ; 

And, when life's sweet fable ends, 

Soul and body part like friends : — 

No quarrels, murmurs, no delay ; 

A kiss, a sigh, and so away ? 

This rare one, reader, would' st thou see, 

Hark hither ; and — thyself be he ! 

The first edition of The Temple, " by Mr. 
George Herbert, late Orator of the Univer- 
Bitj of Cambridge," bears no date.* The 
second appeared in 1633. It is a book, as 
"Walton, in his Life of Donne, with his 
wonted happy warmth remarks, " in which, 
by declaring his own spiritnal conflicts, 
he hath comforted and raised many deject- 
ed souls, and charmed them into sweet 

^- This first edition, a thin duodecimo, is very rare. A 
copy sold at Sotheby's auction-room, in London for £19 
17s. 6d. 

14* 



162 SACEED POEMS. 

and quiet thoughts ; a book, by the frequent 
reading whereof, and the assistance of that 
spirit that seemed to inspire the author, the 
reader may attain habits of peace and piety, 
and all the gifts of the Holy Ghost and 
heaven, and may by still reading, still keep 
those sacred fires burning upon the altar of 
so pure a heart, as shall free it from the 
anxieties of this world, and keep it fixed 
upon things that are above." 

The sub-title of The Temple — " Sacred 
Poems and Private Ejaculations" — ^forms, 
perhaps, the best description of, and com- 
mentary on, its contents. The poems are 
truly sacred. A divine repose, a church- 
like quiet, pervades the whole. There is no 
eff'ort at display — no ambitious attempt to 
portray the scenes of Holy Writ. Each 
poem is an expression of the author's indi- 
vidual thought. Many are prayers in verse, 
the "private ejaculations" of the author's 
closet. But though remote from the turmoil 



CHARITY AND SUNDAYS. 163 

and strife of the world, they bear ample evi- 
dence that their writer knew its trials and 
temptations, sympathized with its sufferings, 
was not insensible to its honorable re- 
wards. Herbert's entire life lies before us 
in its pages. 

The Temple opens with "The Church 
Porch," a series of maxims for the general 
conduct of life, displaying thorough knowl- 
edge of the world and human nature. Many 
of these are expressed with great beauty. 
Thus he remarks on Charity : 

Join hands with God to make a man to live. 

On Sundays : 

Sundays observe : think when the bells do chime, 
'Tis angels' music. 

He says of behavior in church : 

Let vain or busy thoughts have there no part : 
Bring not thy plough, thy plots, thy pleasures thither. 
Christ purged his temple ; so must thou thy heart. 
All worldly thoughts are but thieves met together 
To cozen thee. Look to thy actions well ; 
For churches either are our heaven or hell. 



164 PLAY THE MAN. 

He draws a lively moral from a dull ser- 
mon : 

Do not grudge 
To pick out treasures from an earthen pot. 
The worst speak something good : if all want sense, 
God takes a text, and preacheth patience. 

The Chmxli Porcli concludes witli tlie fol- 
lowing incentive to duty : 

In brief, acquit thee bravely ; play the man. 

Look not on pleasures as they come, but go. 

Defer not the least virtue : life's poor span 

Make not an ill, by trifling in thy woe. 
If thou do ill, the joy fades, not the pain : 
If well, the pain doth fade, the joy remain. 

Passing within, our glance naturally rests 
upon the Altar. The holy table is commem- 
orated in a fanciful manner, much in favor 
with the poets of Herbert's day, by wdiich 
the lines of the composition are so arranged 
that the printed page shall bear a resem- 
blance to its subject matter. We quote 
the poem as a curious illustration of this 
practice : 



THE PARTS OF THE TEMPLE. 165 
THE ALTAR. 

A BROKEN ALTAR, LORD, THY SERVANT REARS, 

MADE OF A HEART, AND CEMENTED WITH TEARS : 

WHOSE PARTS ARE AS THY HAND DID FRAME ; 

NO workman's TOOL HATH TOUCh'd THE SAME. 

A HEART ALONE 

IS SUCH A STONE, 

AS NOTHING BUT 

THY POWER DOTH CUT. 

WHEREFORE EACH PART 

OP MY HARD HEART 

MEETS IN THIS FRAME, 

TO PRAISE THY NAME : 

THAT IF I CHANGE TO HOLD MY PEACE, 

THESE STONES TO PRAISE THEE MAY NOT CEASE. 

O LET THY BLESSED SACRIFICE BE MINE, 

AND SANCTIFY THIS ALTAR TO BE THINE. 

The consideration of The Sacrifice follows, 
a series of reflections npon the different 
scenes of the Passion. The spiritual Temple 
thus entered, the poet dwells in turn upon 
the sacraments and ritual, the holy seasons 
and ceremonies, the occasions of prayer and 
praise, the various parts of the sacred edifice, 
the joys and sorrows of the Christian life. 
We select four of these poems, which we 



166 SIN AND VLRTTJE. 

consider, with those abeady quoted, as the 
most beautiful of the author's productions. 

SIN. 

Lord, with what care hast thou begirt us round ! 
Parents first season us : then schoolmasters 
Deliver us to laws ; they send us bound 

To rules of reason, holy messengers. 

Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin. 
Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes. 
Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in, 

Bibles laid open, millions of surprises, 

Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness, 
The sound of Glory ringing in our ears ; 
Without, our shame ; within, our consciences : 

Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears. 

Yet all these fences and their whole array 
One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away. 

VIETUE. 

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, 
The bridal of the earth and sky, 
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night ; 
For thou must die. 

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave. 
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye, 
Thy root is ever in its grave, 

And thou must die. 



THE BRITISH CHURCH. 167 

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, 
A box where sweets compacted lie, 
My music shows ye have your closes. 
And all must die. 

Only a sweet and virtuous soul, 
Like season' d timber, never gives ; 
But though the whole world turn to coal, 
Then chiefly lives. 



THE BRITISH CHUECH. 

I joy, dear mother, when I view 
Thy perfect lineaments, and hue 

Both sweet and bright : 
Beauty in thee takes up her place, 
And dates her letters from thy face, 

When she doth write. 

A fine aspect in fit array. 

Neither too mean, nor yet too gay. 

Shows who is best : 
Outlandish looks may not compare ; 
For all they either painted are, 

Or else undrest. 

She on the hills, which wantonly 
AUureth all in hope to be 

By her preferr'd. 
Hath kiss'd so long her painted shrines, 
That e'en her face by kissing shines, 

For her reward. 



168 PEACE. 

She in the valley is so shy 

Of dressing, that her hair doth lie 

About her ears : 
While she avoids her neighbour's pride, 
She wholly goes on the other side, 

And nothing wears. 

But, dearest mother, (what those miss) 
The mean thy praise and glory is, 

And long may be. 
Blessed be God, whose love it was 
To double-moat thee with his grace. 

And none but thee. 



PEACE. 

Sweet Peace, where dost thou dwell ? I humbly crave, 
Let me once know. 
I sought thee in a secret cave. 
And ask'd if Peace were there. 
A hollow wind did seem to answer, No : 
Go seek elsewhere. 

I did ; and going, did a rainbow note : 
Surely, thought I, 
This is the lace of Peace's coat : 

I will search out the matter. , 

But while I look'd, the clouds immediately 
Did break and scatter. 

Then went I to a garden, and did spy 
A gallant flower, 



THE PEINCE OF OLD. 1^9 

The crown imperial. Sure, said I, 
Peace at the root must dwell. 
But when I digg'd, I saw a worm devour 
What show'd so well. 

At length I met a reverend good old man, 
Whom when for Peace 
I did demand, he thus began : 
There was a prince of old 
At Salem dwelt, who lived with good increase 
Of flock and fold. 

He sweetly lived ; yet sweetness did not save 
His life from foes. 
But after death out of his grave 

There sprang twelve stalks of wheat : 
Which many wondering at, got some of those 
To plant and set. 

It prosper' d strangely, and did soon disperse 
Through all the earth : 
For they that taste it do rehearse, 
That virtue lies therein ; 
A secret vu-tue, bringing peace and mir.th 
By flight of sin. 

Take of this grain, which in my garden grows, 
And grows for you ; 
Make bread of it : and that repose 
And Peace, which everywhere 
With so much earnestness you do pursue. 
Is only there. 

Several of the poems of The Temple are 
15 



170 OBSCURITIES. 

disfigured by conceits or similes the meaning 
of wMcli is not readily apparent, and when 
obtained often out of harmony with the rest 
of the composition. An example of this 
fault occurs in the concluding verses of the 
poem on Virtue. Other passages may be 
found in which the train of thought is in- 
volved and the meanmg obscure. A little 
patience will, however, always overcome the 
difficulty, and it will be well to bear in mind 
Dr. Johnson's remark, in a somewhat similar 
vein, upon the i3oets of Herbert's school, 
" that, if their conceits were far-fetched, they 
were often worth the carriage."* 

« Life of Cowley. 



CHAPTEK XV. 



LICENSE FOE THE PUBLICATION OF THE TEMPLE — EE- 
LIGION AND AMEEICA — THE VIEGINIA AND NEW EN- 
GLAND EMIGEATIONS — ME. FEEEAE's INTRODTJCTION 
TO THE TEMPLE — POPULAEITT OF THE WOEK — THE 
SYNAGOGUE — CHEISTOPHEE HAEVEY — TVALTON's LINES 

"the book of COMMON PEAYEE" — HEEBEEt's 

PEOVEEBS. 



¥HEK Mr. Ferrar applied at Cambridge 
to obtain a license for the publication 
of The Temple, the Yice Chancellor refused 
his consent, unless the first couplet of the 
following lines should be omitted : 

Keligion stands on tiptoe in our land, 
Ready to pass to the American strand. 
"When height of malice, and prodigious lusts, 
Impudent sinning, witchcrafts and distrusts. 
The marks of future bane, shall fill our cup 
Unto the brim, and make our measure up ; 
When Seine shall swallow Tiber ; and the Thames, 
By letting in them both, pollutes her streams ; 



172 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 

When Italy of us shall have her will, 

And all her calendars of sins fulfil, 

Whereby one may foretell what sins next year, 

Shall both in France and England domineer : 

Then shall Eeligion to America flee ; 

They have their times of gospel ev'n as we.-»- 

Mr. Ferrar, however, insisted that the work 
should be published as left by Mr. Herbert, 
and the Yice Chancellor finally yielded, with 
the remark, " I knew Mr. Herbert well, and 
know that he had many heavenly specula- 
tions, and was a divine poet ; but I hope the 
world will not take him to be an inspired 
prophet, and therefore I license the whole 
book." 

These lines have a peculiar interest to 
American readers. They show that the 
thoughts of Herbert had dwelt on one of the 
great events of his age, the colonization of 
our beloved country. From the prominent 
position of his friend Mr. Ferrar in the Yir- 
ginia Company, he is likely to have been fa- 

« The Church Militant. 



DEDICATION. 173 

miliar witli tliat noble enterprise, conceived 
and executed in a missionary no less tlian a 
mercantile spirit ;'^' and tie was, as we have 
seen, a contemporary at Cambridge with 
some of the future founders of 'New England. 
Herbert did not, however, attach any pro- 
phetic significance to the lines. 

Mr. Ferrar prefixed to The Temple a brief 
address by "The Printer to the Eeader." 
" The dedication of this work," he finely re- 
marks, " having been made by the author to 
the Divine Majesty only, how should we now 
presume to interest any mortal man in the 
patronage of it ? Much less think we it meet 
to seek recommendation of the Muses, for that 
which himself was confident to have been 



■-• This is abundantly evident from the minute account 
of the proceedings of the company given in the Life of 
Ferrar, and other early records. A noble sermon, preach- 
ed by Dr. Donne on the 30th of November, 1622, bears 
eloquent testimony to the same effect. It is vrell known 
that the daily service of their Church vras regularly cel- 
ebrated by the early colonists. 



174 THE SYNAGOGUE. 

inspired by a diviner breath than flows from 
Helicon. The world, therefore, shall receive 
it in that naked simplicity with which he left 
it, without any addition either of support or 
ornament, more than is inclosed in itself. We 
leave it free and unforestalled to every man's 
judgment, and to the benefit that he shall 
find by perusal." 

The Temple was received with great favor 
by the public, and at once attained a wide 
popularity. Twenty thousand copies had 
been sold when "Walton's Life of the author 
was written. The edition published in 1640 
was accompanied by a collection of poems 
similar in character, but far inferior in merit, 
to those of Herbert, entitled, " The Syna- 
gogue, or the Shadow of the Temple, Sacred 
Poems and Private Ejaculations, in imitation 
of Mr. George Herbert." They were pub- 
lished anonymously, but the authorship has 
generally been attributed to the Pev. Chris- 
topher Harvey, on the authority of Izaak 



CHRISTOPHER HARVEY. 175 

"Walton, who addresses his " reverend friend, 
the Author of The Synagogue," in some com- 
mendator J verses : 

I loved you for your Synagogue, before 

I knew your person ; but now love you more ; 

Because I find 
It is so true a picture of your mind ; 

Which times your sacred lyre * 

To that eternal quire, 

Where holy Herbert sits 

(0 shame to profane wits !) 
And sings his and your anthems, to the praise 
Of Him that is the first and last of days. 

"Walton also quotes, in his Complete An- 
gler, one of the poems of the volume, with 
the name " Ch. Harvie" appended as the 
author. 

The Synagogue has since maintained its 
place in almost every edition of Herbert's 
Poems. We quote, as a specimen of its 
style, and for its own merits, the poem se- 
lected by Mr. Walton : 



1Y6 PKAYEE BY THE BOOK. 



COMMON PRAYER. 

What, prayer by the book ? and common ? Yes. Why not? 
The spirit of grace 
And supplication 
Is not left free alone 
For time and place ; 
But manner too. To read, or speak by rote, 
« Is all alike to him, that prays 

With's heart, that with his mouth he says. 

They that in private by themselves alone 
Do pray, may take 
What liberty they please, 
In choosing of the ways, 
Wherein to make 
Their soul's most intimate affections known 
To him that sees in secret, when 
They are most conceal' d from other men. 

But he that unto others leads the way 
In public prayer, 
Should choose to do it so 
As all, that hear, may know 
They need not fear 
To tune their hearts unto his tongue, and say, 
Amen ; nor doubt they were betray' d 
To blaspheme, when they should have pray'd. 

Devotion will add life unto the letter. 

And why should not 

That which authority 

Prescribes esteemed be 



177 



Advantage got ? 
If the Prayer be good, the commoner the better. 
Prayer in the Church's words, as well 
As sense, of all prayers bears the bell. 

Herbert's collection of " Outlandish Prov- 
verbs" was one of tlie earliest formed in the 
language. Tbe selection testifies, like all his 
works, to his knowledge of the world. The 
Proverbs are eleven hundred and eighty- 
two in number. A few specimens may be 
given : 

He that studies his content, wants it. 
Every day brings its bread with it. 
Humble hearts have humble desires. 
A cool mouth, and warm feet, live long. 
When a friend asks, there is no to-morrow. 
God sends cold according to clothes. 
Old wine and an old friend are good provisions. 
Would you know what money is, go borrow some. 
Though you see a churchman ill, yet continue in the 
church still. 

Hell is full of good meanings and wishings. 

The last-quoted proverb is interesting from 



178 PR. JOHNSON. 

its similarity to a favorite expression of Dr. 
Jolinson, " Hell is paved with good inten- 
tions." Both are, no doubt, derived from a 
common original, far back in the primitive 
ages of wisdom. 



CHAPTEE XYI. 

IZAAK WALTON' — LIVES OF DONNE AND WALTON — THE 

COMPLETE ANGLER ALLUSIONS TO MR. HERBERT 

LIVES OF HOOKER AND HERBERT PREFACES TO HIS 

LIFE OF HERBERT WOODFORd'S LINES ON HERBERT 

AND DONNE COTTON's TRIBUTE TO HERBERT — DU- 

PORT's latin lines — LIFE OF SANDERSON — WORDS- 

worth's sonnet — Walton's death. 

V ALTON'S Life of Herbert appeared in 
1670. We have already, by our fre- 
quent extracts, given a significant proof of 
our admiration of his labors. Herbert owes 
no small portion of his fame to his en- 
thusiastic old biographer. "Walton was a man 
every way qualified to do justice to his theme. 
He presented as a layman a model almost as 
perfect as the Complete Parson, Herbert. 

Born of respectable but not opulent pa- 
rents in the midland town of Stafford, he 



180 SIR IIENEY WOTTON. 

came in liis youtli to London and devoted 
himself to merchandise. His honesty and 
enterprise seem to have been crowned with 
success in the accnmnlation of a moderate 
fortune. He was a parishioner and intimate 
of Herbert's friend Donne. On the death 
of that eminent divine the preparation of his 
sermons for the press, with a memoir of the 
author, was commenced by Sir Henry Wot- 
ton, a leading statesman, scholar, and church- 
man of the period. He died before he had 
more than entered upon his task. The duty 
next devolved upon "Walton, who had al- 
ready been engaged as an assistant. His 
life, prefixed to a folio volume of Donne's 
Sermons, appeared in 1640. 

His next labor of love was the preparation 
of the Beliqidce Wottonianm for the press, 
accompanied by a memoir of his accom- 
plished friend. The volume appeared in 
1651. In 1653 he published his Complete 
Angler, a little work which has given him 



THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 181 

a perpetual fame as an autlior. The purity 
and freshness of its style, its pictures of rural 
scenes, its cheerful vein of reflection, its un- 
affected piety, have made it a favorite with 
all lovers of good books. 

Walton has twice introduced Herbert in 
the Complete Angler. In the first chap- 
ter, Piscator closes some remarks on rivers 
and fishes in these words : 

"But, Sir, lest this discourse may seem 
tedious, I shall give it a sweet conclusion out 
of that holy poet, Mr. George Herbert, his 
divine contemplations on God's Providence." 

Three stanzas follow from one of the poems 
of The Temple. 

In the fifth chapter, Piscator says — And 
now, scholar ! my direction for fly-fishing is . 
ended with this shower, for it has done rain- 
ing. And now look about you and see how 
pleasantly that meadow looks ; nay, and the 
earth smells as sweetly, too. Come, let me 
tell you what holy Mr. Herbert says of such 
16 



182 ME. HEEBEKT AJS" ANGLEK. 

days and flowers as these ; and then we will 
thank God that we enjoy them ; and walk to 
the river and sit down quietly, and try to 
catch the other brace of tronts — 

Sweet day ! so cool, so calm, so bright.'* 

Venator. I thank you, good master! for 
your good direction for fly-fishing; and for 
the sweet enjoyment of the pleasant day, 
which is, so far, spent without offence to 
God or man. And I thank you for the 
sweet close of your discourse with Mr. Her- 
bert's verses ; who, I have heard, loved an- 
gling, and I do the rather believe it, because 
he had a spirit suitable to anglers, and to those 
primitive Christians that you love, and have 
so much commended. 

Piscator. "Well, my loving scholar ! and 
am well pleased to know that you are so wel 
pleased with my direction and discourse 
And since you like these verses of Mr. He. 

« Virtue, p. 87. 



LIVES OF HOOKER AND HERBERT. 183 

bert's so well, let me tell you, what a rev- 
erend and learned divine that professes to 
imitate him, and has indeed done so most 
excellently, hath writ of our book of Com- 
mon Prayer ; which I know you will like the 
better, because he is a friend of mine, and I 
am sure no enemy to angling. 

What, Pray'r by the book ? and common ? Yes. Why 
not ?* 

Walton's next work, the Life of Richard 
Hooker, appeared in 1G65. This was fol- 
lowed by the Life of George Herbert. In 
the preface he says : 

" In a late retreat from the business of this 
world, and those many little cares with 
which I have too often incumbered myself, 
I fell into a contemplation of some of those 
historical passages that are recorded in sacred 
story, and more particularly of what had 
past betwixt our blessed Saviour and that 

<* Ante, page 176. 



184 DONNE, WOTTON, AND HEKBEET. 

wonder of women, and sinners, and mourn- 
ers, Saint Mary Magdalen. 

* * * -x- * 

"Upon occasion of wliicli fair example, 1 
did lately look back, and not without some 
content (at least to myself) that I have en- 
deavoured to deserve the love, and preserve 
the memory of my two deceased friends, Dr. 
Donne and Sir Henry Wotton, by declaring 
the several employments and various acci- 
dents of their lives. And though Mr. George 
Herbert (whose Life I now intend to write) 
were to me as stranger to his person, for I 
have only seen him ; yet since he was, and 
was worthy to be, their friend, and very 
many of his have been mine, I judge it may 
not be unacceptable to those that knew any 
of them in their lives, or do now know them 
by mine, or their own writings, to see this 
conjunction of them after their deaths, with- 
out which many things that concerned them, 
and some things that concerned the age in 



DONNE, WOTTON, IIOOKEK, AND IIEKBERT. 185 

whicli they lived, would be less perfect, and 
lost to posterity. 

" For these, reasons I have undertaken it, 
and if I have prevented any abler person, I 
beg pardon of him and my reader." 

The Life of Herbert was soon after repub- 
lished, with those of Donne, Wotton, and 
Hooker, in a single volume. In the preface 
to this collection the author remarks : 

" For the life of Mr. George Herbert, I pro- 
fess it to be a free-will offering, and writ 
chiefly to please myself; but not without 
respect to posterity, for though he was not 
a man that the next age can forget, yet 
many of his particular acts and virtues 
might have been neglected, or lost, if I had 
not collected and presented them to the imi- 
tation of those that shall succeed us : for I 
conceive writing to be both a safer and truer 
preserver of men's virtuous actions than tra- 
dition." 

Among the congratulatory poems prefixed, 
16* 



186 CHARLES OOTTON. 

in accordance with the publishing fashion of 
the age, to this collection, are some verses 
by Samuel "Woodford, afterwards Prebend- 
ary of Winchester. They contain a pleas- 
ing allusion to our poet. 

"Herbert and Donne again are join'd, 
Now here below, as they're above ; 
These friends are in their old embraces twin'd, 
And since by you the interview's design' d, 
Too weak, to part them, Death does prove ; 
For, in this book they meet again, as in one heaven 
they love." 

Walton's Life was first printed with Her- 
bert's Poems in 1674, when the tenth edition 
of "The Temple" appeared. In the follow- 
ing year, the collected Lives were rej)rinted. 
Charles Cotton the author of the Second 
Part of The Complete Angler, printed in 
1676, addressed a congratulatory poem to 
his old friend, '' my father Walton," as he 
delighted to call him, on the occasion. The 
following lines have an especial interest for 
us: 



LINES ON Walton's lives. 187 

The meek and learned Hooker too, almost 
In the Church's ruins overwhelm' d and lost, 
Is, by your pen, recover' d from his dust. 

And Herbert : — he whose education, 
Manners, and parts, by high applauses blown, 
Was deeply tainted with ambition ; 

And fitted for a court, made that his aim ; 
At last, without regard to birth or name. 
For a poor country cure does all disclaim ; 

Where with a soul, compos' d of harmonies, 
Like a sweet swan, he warbles as he dies. 
His Maker's praise, and his own obsequies. 

Another allusion to Herbert is found in 
tlie Latin ode by his friend, the Rev. James 
Duport,* prefixed to the fifth edition of the 
Complete Angler. We quote from the ele- 
gant translation by the Rev. James Tate, a 
Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's Cathedral, 
printed in the Rev. Dr. Zouch's Life of Wal- 
ton: 

While Hooker, philosophic sage. 
Becomes the wonder of your page, 

« v., p. 68. 



188 wokdswokth's sonnet. 

Or while we see combined in one 
Tlie Wit and the Divine in Donne, 
Or while the Poet and the Priest, 
In Herbert's sainted form confest. 
Unfold the temple's holy maze 
That awes and yet invites our gaze : 
Worthies these of pious name 
From your portraying pencil claim 
A second life, and strike anew 
With fond delight the admiring view. 

In 1678 Walton i3iiblislied tlie Life of Dr. 
Robert Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, the 
last of liis inimitable series of biographies. 
Well has a Church Poet, a worthy successor 
of George Herbert, AYilliam Wordsworth, 
written, that 

There are no colors in the fairest sky 

So fair as these ; the feather whence the pen 

Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men, 

Dropped from an Angel's wing. With moistened eye, 

We read of faith and purest charity. 

In Statesman, Priest, and humble Citizen. 

Oh, could we copy their mild virtues, then 

What joy to live, what blessedness to die ! 

Methinks their very Names shine still and bright, 

Apart — like glow-worms in the woods of spring, 

Or lonely tapers shooting far a light 



Walton's death and tomb. 189 

lliat guides and cheers — or seen like stars on high, 

Satellites burning in a lucid ring, 

Around meek Walton's heavenly memory. 

On the ninth of August, 1683, Izaak Wal- 
ton, " being this present day in the neintj- 
eth yeare of my age and in perfect memory, 
for wich praysed be God," made his wiU. It 
is sealed with the seal j^resented to him by 
Dr. Donne, of Our S"aviour crucified on an 
anchor. On the fifteenth of the following 
December, " during the time of the great 
frost," the good old man closed fiis long, use- 
ful, and happy life. He was buried in Win- 
chester Cathedral, where his tombstone may 
still be seen, set in the pavement of a quiet 
side chapel ; a beautiful and appropriate rest- 
ing-place. We may well apply to this simple 
slab the fine lines of the poet Crashaw's 
" Epitaph upon Mr. Ashton." 

Tlie modest front of this small floor, 
Believe me, reader, can say more 
Than many a braver marble can, — 
"Here lies a truly honest man." 



190 Herbert's obligations to walton. 

Few distinguislied. men have been as mucli 
indebted to their biographers as George Her- 
bert to Izaak "Walton. The poet lives by his 
admirer's portraiture almost as much as by 
his own sweet verses. By the aid of the 
" honest chronicler," we admire and revere 
the man as well as the poet. 

We meet with a fine tribute to the celes- 
tial verse of Herbert in " Steps to the Tem- 
ple," a collection of Poems, by Eichard Cras- 
haw, a poet. whom we have already had oc- 
casion to mention, first published in 1646. 
The title of this work seems to show that 
its author wished to be regarded as an ad- 
mirer and follower of the author of The 
Temple. 

ON MR. G. HERBERT'S BOOK, 

ENTITLED, "THE TEMPLE OF SACRED POEMS," SENT TO A. 
GENTLEWOMAN. 

Know you, fair, on wliat you look ? 
Divinest love lies in this book, 
Expecting fire from your eyes, 
To kindle this His sacrifice. 



191 



When your hands untie these strings, 
Think you've an angel by the wings ; 
One that gladly will be nigh 
To wait upon each morning sigh, 
To flutter in the balmy air 
Of your well perfumed prayer. 
These white plumes of His he'll lend yon, 
Which every day to heaven will send you ; 
To take acquaintance of the sphere, 
And all the smooth-faced kindred there. 
And though Herbert's name do owe 
These devotions, fairest, know 
That while I lay them on the shrine 
Of your white hand, they are mine. 

During the IStli century, Herbert, in com- 
mon with, most of the writers of his time, was 
almost forgotten. There is a curious evi- 
dence of this in a passage in the Eev. Dr. 
Joseph Warton's Essay on the Genius and 
Character of Pope. Referring to the well- 
known verses by that author, commencing, 

Vital spark of heavenly flame, 

he says : 

"There is a close and surprising resem- 
blance between this Ode of Pope and one of 
a very obscure and justly forgotten rhymer 



192 POPE, CAMPBELL, AND COLEKIDaE. 

of the age of Charles II., namely, Thomas 
Flatman, from whose dmighill, as well as 
from the dregs of Crashaw, of Carew, of 
Herbert and others (for it is well known he 
was a great reader of all these poets). Pope 
has very judiciously collected gold." 

The extract shows that Pope knew where 
to seek for treasure, and that his taste is more 
to be commended than that of his commenta- 
tor. It is, however, only of recent years that 
Herbert has recovered his proper position in 
our literature. Even so late as 1818 we find 
a critic of nice ear and acknowledged taste 
as well as the author of noble lyrics, Thomas 
Campbell, in his Specimens of English Po- 
etry, dismissing The Temple with a brief and 
almost discourteous sentence. 

One of the first, in time and merit, to do 
justice to George Herbert, was Samuel Tay- 
lor Coleridge. His notes on The Temple, ap- 
pended to Mr. Pickering's edition, are mark- 
ed by sympathy and appreciation as well as 



MRS. BKOWNING. 193 

his wonted critical power, and lie finely re* 
marks, in The Friend : 

" Having mentioned the name of Herbert, 
that model of a man, a gentleman and a cler- 
gyman, let me add, that the quaintness of his 
thoughts, not of his diction, than which noth- 
ing can be more pure, manly, and unaffected, 
has blinded modern readers to the great gen- 
eral merit of his poems, which are, for the 
most part, exquisite in their kind." 

Another noble poet, the grandest of female 
writers, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, has paid 
a brief but emphatic tribute to our author. 
In a rapid review of many of the great 
names of the time of Elizabeth and James, 
she presents " Herbert with his face as the 
face of a sj)irit, dimly bright.""^ 

Mr. Pickering's reprint, in 1836, of Her- 
bert's prose and poetry, was an acceptable 
service to his reputation. Other editions of 

'* Papers on the English Poets, published in the London 
Athenaeum for 1842. 

ir 



194 PORTRAIT OF MK. HEKBEBT. 

the Poetical "Works, edited by the Rev. Rob- 
ert Aris "Willmott and the Rev. George Gil- 
fiUan, have since been published. An illus- 
trated cop7 of The Temple appeared in 1856. 
It is the most beautiful tribute a sister art has 
yet bestowed upon our poet. In -addition to 
numerous landscapes and imaginative de- 
signs, we find the pages decorated with deli- 
cately sketched boughs and garlands, so that 
The Temple is presented, in happy harmony 
with the gift-book purpose of the edition, as 
if " dressed for Christmas." 

The portraits of George Herbert have all 
been copied from the engraved head prefixed 
to an early edition of his poems. This was 
executed by Robert "Wliite, an artist cele- 
brated for the excellence of his work and 
accuracy of his likenesses. Many of these 
were drawn from the life with crayons upon 
vellum ; but this could not have been the case 
with Mr. Herbert's, as the artist was not born 
until 1615. Tlie original drawing or paint- 



-MR. herbekt's successors. 195 

ing from wliich his work is copied is not 
known. 

Bemerton has, as we have seen, changed 
but little since Mr. Herbert's day. Two of 
its later incumbents have contributed to 
maintain its literary reputation. John !N'or- 
ris is generally quoted as Norris of Bemer- 
ton. He was born in 1657, was educated at 
Oxford, and became a Fellow of All Souls' 
College about 1681. He was ordained in 
1684, and appointed rector of Bemerton in 
1691. He was the author of several philo- 
sophical works of the Platonic or ideal school, 
and died at Bemerton, worn out it is said 
with excessive study, in lYll. 

William Coxe became the successor of Her- 
bert in 1788. This voluminous writer was 
born in London in 1747. He received a 
Fellowship in King's College, Cambridge, in 
1768. He made an extensive tour through 
Europe with Lord Herbert, son of the Earl 
of Pembroke, from whom he afterwards ob- 



196 LIFE AND FAME. 

tained the living of Bemerton, and published 
several volumes on these and his subsequent 
continental travels. He wrote histories of 
the House of Austria, and of the Bourbon 
Kings of Spain, each in three large volumes ; 
the Lives of the Duke of Marlborough and 
Sir Robert Walpole, with other large and 
elaborate works. In 1805 he became Arch- 
deacon of Wilts. He died at Bemerton in 
1828. 

We have followed the career of George 
Herbert from the cradle to the grave, and 
traced his reputation from its birth to its 
present ripeness. The one is the limited 
record of thirty-four years passed in the nar- 
row bounds of an University and a village, the 
other spreads over two centuries, and follows 
the broad path of the English language around 
the world. The dust has returned to dust; 
even the stone of the sepulchre has been hid 
from sight by subsequent chancel alterations, 
but the author still lives, for his '' winged 



CONCLUSION. 197 

words" still speed over the world, angelic 
messengers of peace and comfort. Sweet in 
themselves, how their melody deepens and 
ripens as we study the countenance of the 
singer and muse over the pure soul, beaming 
forth in its fair serenity ! How anthem-like 
seems the " Sunday," as we listen in the sick 
room on that last day "most pure, most 
calm, most bright," to the tones of tremulous 
lute and quavering voice ! How gently, with 
mind stored with this good example, with 
these melodious utterances, does the united 
harmony fill our thoughts, " giving us pause" 
in our daily labor, as of old the husband- 
man's plough rested when the tones of " Mr. 
Herbert's Saint's bell" floated through the 
air. 

THE END. 



LIFE OF BISHOP WAINWRIGHT. 



ITiis is a continuation of the popular series, already so 
favorably received by the Church. The author has been 
enabled to enliven the earlier part of the memoir by 
some letters written in boyhood, and which will amuse 
children. The various letters of the Bishop to his chil- 
dren in after-life contain, in brief and affectionate sim- 
plicity, a world of wisdom. The interest increases as the 
story proceeds, and culminates in that brief and busy 
Episcopate which, in the immense amount of its labors, 
and the solemn suddenness of its close — the sharp recoil 
of nature against severe overwork — yet remains stamped 
so strongly and so warmly in the heart of the Church. 

The exquisite Ikie-engraving portrait of the Bishop, 
which embellishes the work, is one of the happiest like- 
nesses of him that we have ever seen. — Church Journals 



Clergy and Parish List of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church 

IN THE UNITED STATES. 

In addition to a general Clergy List, showing the Post- 
Office address of each clergyman, this work contains a 
Tabular Lisj^ of the towns in each of the Dioceses in which 
there are Parishes, given alphabetically ; and also the 
name of the Church, and of the Rector, with the r umber 
of families, and of communicants in each Parish, as far as 
can be ascertained. A convenient and desirable work. — 
Calendar. 

36 



CRITICAL NOTICES. 



Life of Bishop Claggett, of Maryland. By Eey. 
John N. Norton, M.A. 

The Life of Bishop Griswold. Second Edition. En- 
larged. By the same Author. 

The Life of Bishop White. By the same Author. 
Second Edition. Enlarged. 

The above-mentioned books are published by the Gen- 
eral Protestant Episcopal Sunday School Union and 
Church Book Society, New York, 1859. And most choice 
books they are, too. Written or compiled by one of the 
soundest divines of the Church, and having also the merit 
of truth, and being most interesting narratives of the 
lives of honored and distinguished Bishops of the Church, 
we recommend them, as they were specially intended, to 
every Sunday-school of the Church. 

The "Life of Bishop Claggett" was published by con- 
tributions from the Diocese of Maryland ; has a very well 
executed steel engraving of the Bishop ; is dedicated to 
the Hon. Ezekiel P. Chambers, of Chestertown, Maryland ; 
and the preface asserts that "Eev. Ethan Allen, D.D., 
of Baltimore, has been engaged in good earnest in com- 
piling and preparing a much larger work upon the ' Life 
and Times of Bishop Claggett.' " 

The "Life of Bishop Griswold" is an exceedingly in- 
teresting volume, aside from its value as a biography of 
the late Bishop ; because it sets forth, though briefly, a 
history of what was once called the Eastern Diocese, com- 
posed of the present dioceses of Maine, New Hampshire, 
Vermont, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. It has also 
a very beautifully executed steel engraving of the Bishop. 

These books are characteristic specimen^ of the work 
and material of the Society which issues them, and which 
deserves the hearty co-operation of the Church in all its 
good works. Long may it flourish to send forth for chil- 
dren such works, unquestionable in character, and sanc- 
tifying in influence.— CAt/rcAman. 
37 



THE LIBPiAIilAN: 

OF THE 

General Protestant Episcopal Sunday School Union 
and Church Book Society. 



An excellent, and we think it will hereafter be re- 
garded an indispensable, book of reference. It gives an 
alphabetical list of all the subjects treated of in the books 
issued by the Society, with reference to the volume in 
which each subject is considered. This is followed by a 
list of the names of the authors of the various books, so 
far as known ; then a list of the illustrations ; an alpha- 
betical and numerical catalogue. The whole concludes 
with a list of the books of instruction published by the 
Society. — Gospel Messenger. 

This book is much more than is indicated by its title. 
It contains an index of subjects in the various publica- 
tions of the Society, and in what volume each may be 
found ; a list of the authors and illustrations ; an alpha- 
betical and numerical catalogue of the Society's books, 
and also books of instruction and Sunday-school requisites 
in general. It is valuable for S. S. teachers and pastors ; 
and every librarian of a parish or S. S. library ought to 
have it for constant reference. — Calendar. 



FROM THE WOODS OP CAROLlKA. 



Messrs. Editors — Among the many beautiful presents 
to gladden the hearts of our children at this happy sea- 
son, I know of none having as strong a claim on an in- 
habitant of this State, and especially of this city, as the 
volume entitled ' ' A Wreath from the Woods of Caro- ■ 
lina," 

The design of the work and the literary matter are by 
a lady of this city, whose genius, manifest to all in this 
production, and evinced to her friends in several depart- 
ments of the arts, not all the cares of a large family and 
a responsible position have been able to repress ; while 
another lady of this city has furnished the colored draw- 
ings from which the beautiful flowers have been engraved. 

The author has presented the fruit of her labors to the 
Church Book Society. It is therefore on her part an 
offering of piety, as well as of taste and talent, to swell 
the amount of the good and beautiful things of the season. 

The Society have shown their sense of the value of the 
gift by the expense and pains which they have bestowed 
upon the volume. Its paper, type, and above all, exquisite 
representations of the flowers, make the book a treasure 
in its externals. 

But, after all, the stories for the children constitute its 
chief attraction and merit. The style is smgularly clear 
and animated ; the spirit is the spirit of love and cheerful 
piety ; the lessons are wise, yet admirably adapted to 
children ; and the whole is suggestive of the brightness 
and fragrance and freshness of the woods themselves, in 
a charming morning of May. 

Let all the friends of the young see that their little 
favorites have among their Christian treasures ' ' A Wreath 
from the Woods of Carolina." — From Ihe RoMgh {North 
Carolina^ Standard. 

39 



BOOK NOTICES. 

JUVENILE BOOKS. 



' ' Juveniles' ' are the most taking books just now. The 
Rev. F. D. Harriman, agent of the Protestant Episcopal 
Sunday School Union, has recently published some seven 
or eight, which the little folks, male and female, are much 
pleased with. The two largest are *' Bessie Melville" and 
*' Sidney Grey," very neat 16mo volumes. The story of 
Bessie, though simple and unpretending, is charmingly 
entertaining ; its excellent lessons are rendered so attract- 
ive that the most indolent and thoughtless can hardly 
fiiil to profit by them. The main object of the book is to 
show how prayer-book instructions may be practiced in 
the ordinary transactions of life— an object which, so far 
as I can pretend to judge, is successfully carried out. 
"Sidney Grey" is designed chiefly for boys. It contains 
incidents enough for a * ' sensation' ' novel ; but they are 
not treated in the sensation style. Not but those most 
commonplace are invested with an interest which many a 
pretentious romance-writer of the present day would en- 
deavor in vain to impart to his most elaborately got up 
"scenes." "Mia and Charlie" is by the same author — 
a charming story, or rather series of stories, for the young. 
The account which the pretty little book gives of a week's 
holiday at the Bydale Rectory is lively, entertaining, and 
instructive in no ordinary degree. It has caused many a 
bright, happy smile since the holidays commenced ; and 
it is worth reading at any time. In this hurried chat I 
can only mention "The Boy Missionary," "The Life of 
Bishop Wainwright," "The Life of George Herbert,*' 
*'The Life of Bishop Ravenscroft," and "The Tortoise- 
Shell Comb." Each tiny " Life 'i is embellished with a 
handsome portrait. — Newark Daily Advertiser. 
40 



BOOK NOTICES. 

BESSY MELVILLE; 

Or, Prayer-Book Instruclioiis Carried Out Into Life. 

A SEQUEL TO "THE LITTLE EPISCOPALIAN." 
BY M. A. C. 



The title of this very handsome volume gives a good 
idea of its character. "Bessy's" story, though simple 
and unpretending, is replete with that kind of instruction 
which it is essential that all Christian children should re- 
ceive in one form or other ; and what is more, its lessons 
are rendered so attractive that the most indolent and 
thoughtless of our little friends will find pleasure in 
learning them. The author possesses the rare faculty of 
combining the useful with the agreeable, and at the same 
time writes in pure, correct English, which is more than 
could be said of many pretentious novelists of the present 
day. The book is well printed, and tastefully bound in 
mvLslin.— Philadelphia Daily News. 



MIA AND CHARLIE; 

OK, 

A WEEK'S HOLIDAY AT THE BYDALE RECTORY, 

Is another illustrated, instructive book, from the same 
press. It is sufficient to say that it is worthy of both. 
Indeed, it has seldom been our privilege to examine a 
volume better calculated to coax children to be sensible, 
religious, and good. Boys and girls will be equally 
pleased with it, and w% recommend it accordingly. — Phil- 
adelphia Daily Neios. 

41 



BO )K NOTICES. 

Sidney Grey. A Tale of School Life By the author 
of " Mia and Charlie," 

Is a good, entertaining, useful book for hoys. It contains 
sufficient incidents for a modern romance, hut they are 
not of the "intense" kind. On the contrary, they are 
generally of ordinary character, such as are constantly 
occurring around us ; but those most commonplace are 
invested with a degree of interest which is in itself a 
charm. "Sydney Grey," however, is no baby's book. 
Indeed, there are not many adults who would not find its 
teachings profitable. The style of the narrative is chaste, 
lively, and graphic, the typography is excellent, and the 
binding at once neat and substantial. Nor must we omit 
to tell the little folks that they will also be pleased with 
the illustrations in ' ' Sydney Grey. ' ' There are no better 
safeguards against Popery than books of this kind.— 
Philadelphia Daily News. 



The Boy Missionary. By Mrs. Jenxy Mabsh Parker. 

This is another little volume which is destined to do 
much good, for it is so written that it will be read with 
avidity by those for whose benefit it is intended. The 
story of Davie Hall is full of wholesome encouragement, 
and can not fail to make an impression. 

The Episcopal Church Book Society have also recently 
published "The Life of Bishop Wainwright," " The Life 
of George Herbert," "The Life of Bishop Kavenscroft," 
and "The Tortoise-Shell Comb," all of which are well 
suited for children. Each tiny "Life" is embellished 
with a fine portrait, and ought to find a place in the 
juvenile library of every Protestant family. — Fhiladdphia 
DaUy Neivs. 

42 



BY GEORGE L. DUYCKINCK. 

New York, 1S58 : pp.197. 



We have too long neglected to do our share in brmging 
this delightful little book to the notice of the lovers of 
holy George Herbert, among whom we may safely reckon 
a large number of the readers of the " Atlantic." It is 
based on the life by Izaak Walton, but contains much new 
matter, either out of Walton's reach or beyond the range 
of his sympathy. 

Notices are given of Nicholas Ferrar and other friends 
of Herbert. There is a very agreeable sketch of Bemerton 
and its neighborhood, as it now is, and the neat illustra- 
tions are of the kind that really illustrate. The Brothers 
Duyckinck are well known for their unpretentious and 
valuable labors in the cause of good letters and American 
literary history, and this is precisely such a book as we 
should expect from the taste, scholarship, and purity of 
mind which distinguish both of them. It is much the 
best account of Herbert with which we are acquainted. — 
Atlantic Monthly. 

43 



lift df iis|fl| 'gabstn 



BY THE REV. J. N. NORTON. 



The memoir of this Boston boy (son of a New England 
Congregationalist preacher, who afterwards took orders in 
the Church and died in South Carolina, where his more 
celebrated son afterwards became Bishop) is not marked 
by any very striking incident, but breathes everywhere 
the quiet firmness, the affectionate nature, the sober and 
steady principles, the meek and humble spirit of its sub- 
ject. His warm friendship for Bishop Hobart led to a long 
continued correspondence, some specimens of which are 
inserted in this memoir. — Church Journal. 

These biographies of the Bishops are all interesting. — 
Southern Churchman. 

Another and very interesting addition to the several 
memoirs of our Bishops which Mr. Norton has been dili- 
gently preparing and sending through the press. The 
peculiar energy displayed by the subject of this memoir, 
while, a child of eight years, he crossed the river from 
John's Island to Charleston in a boat, and, by his earnest 
pleading, obtained the services of a physician for his dying 
father, continued to mark him through life, united to the 
tenderness and ready sympathy which formed so import- 
ant an element of his piety and his usefulness. — Protestant 
Churchman. 

44 



,,.^^ ^^oxiCES. 

A most perfect character, well drawn out, and shown in 
various colors, conspiring to complete the picture of a 
righteous man. — The volume is one of the most attractive 
of the series. —Mr. Norton is determined that Bishops shall 
be remembered, and no good of them be lost. — Banner of 
the Cross. 

A person might be induced to read the life of this 
Bishop, not only because of its literary source, but because 
of the resemblance in the portrait attached to the ener- 
getic Bishop Philander Chase. Mr. Norton has worked 
iif to this memoir much general information in the history 
of the Church during the life-time of Bishop Bowen, and 
some valuable thoughts on incidental subjects. — Calendar. 

This is an interesting and truthful sketch of one whose 
memory is warmly cherished in our diocese, and whose 
character and attainments were such as to make him one 
of the men of mark in our Church. The material for the 
biography has been well worked up by Mr. Norton, and 
the interest of the volume is much increa|ed by the intro- 
duction of some graphic reminiscences by the Be v. Paul 
Trapier, and extracts from some of the Bishop's own letters 
when travelling in Europe. 

The quiet dignity, mild benevolence, and general con- 
servativeness of the Bishop' s character are properly delin- 
eated, and justice is done to the earnestness of his Episco- 
pate and the tender faithfulness of his pastoral intercourse. 
— Southern Episcopalian. 

45 



